do it yourself painting

[erics02]

From what I've read, most everyone recommends going to a pro to get your fairings painted if you are a first timer. How hard is it really to spray paint a bike and clear coat it? Can another first timer tell me? Assuming it is very difficult, how much on average would a bike or car body shop charge to paint a complete lower fairing? How much do you think suzuki would charge since they will definitely have the YC2 paint on hand and wont have to special order it? If i do it muself, would simply scouring the fairing, then primer, wetsand, paint, dry, paint, dry, paint, clear coat, and polish work well enough? what are the problems you would expect me to run into? things like air bubbles, uneven painting? ect... just fishing for help here

[yorkie_chris]

Read in bike (I think) a while ago about the DIY stuff, their advice was to do the most part of it yourself, very carefully and get the final finish and clearcoat done by the pros

[northwind]

I sprayed mine myself, using a gun and singlepack paint and laquer. For a first time DIY effort, I'd say it's pretty damn good, but it's still not brilliant. I'm fairly proud of the results I got but even when it was looking its best anyone who knows their stuff would see the flaws.

I wouldn't do it again, the investment of time was just huge, and it still ended up fairly expensive- as with all good projects I overran the budget by at least 100%, mainly because my compressor blew up half way through... In the end I probably spent something in the order of half of the price of a pro job. And like I say, it was a sponge for free time, I ended up in the garage on christmas eve and christmas day trying to get it finished frinstance. I don't really have any idea of the total time spent planning, prepping, repairing, undercoating, flatting back, spraying, then polishing up. I don't want to think about it that hard :smt103 But long enough to, for instance, raise a child.

Clearcoat is a problem. You can't really spray 2-pack paint DIY, as it's, well, deadly. Any time you see "cyanide" in a list of ingredients you know it's trouble :mrgreen: You either need a pressurised breathing mask, which calls for a massive compressor, or you need to be able to hold your breath for 10 minutes at a time...

I've not found an alternative that's up to scratch (or not-scratch, as it were). I used a singlepack, and it's just not tough enough- it fogs quickly and it scratches too easily, my cordura trousers leave marks in the tank laquer! Not zips, just folds in the cordura. It's a full time job to keep it looking half decent, I entirely gave up on keeping it shiny some time ago (also, every time I take out a mark or polish out a bit of fogging, that's a bit less clearcoat on the bike). The plan was always to get it cleared by friendly painter forum member Big Al in 2-pack but in the end, we didn't. The U-Pol Smartclear claims to give a 2-pack like hardness. It doesn't, I used some of that and I don't think it's any better than the cheap stuff i used. If you want it to look good in pictures, singlepack is fine, but if you actually ride the bike it doesn't last.

Cellulose clearcoat isn't worth the effort, as far as I'm concerned, I redid one panel (after a crash) using a rattlecan cellulose a while back and it's a joke- even fully cured it actually marks when hit by insects- clean them off at the end of a run, and they've left craters! Also, it's not petrol resistant, so if you use it on the tank and get a splash, the finish will soften and can mark (singlepack is at least a bit resistant, though still not great).

But, this is all a wee bit negative, if you were to spray a primer and basecoat, and maybe seal it with singlepack, you could then get it cleared in the real stuff by a pro, if you can find someone who'll do that (and if the laquers don't react with each other). Spraying a basecoat without a clear and getting a pro to top it is fiddly as you only have a limited window of opportunity to do the topcoat with most paints, and the paint itself is very fragile so transporting is very difficult.

Also, it's incredibly liberating- after that crash, I had the bike back looking OK- not perfect, but passable- 2 weeks to the day later, for £25. It's a useful skill to have. I whacked a mirror off a car last year, witha pro painted mirror I'd have cried, but I just sanded and sprayed it, took about an hours solid work and under a tenner's worth of consumables.

Remember to budget for thinners and wet and dry, I went through about 5 litres of bulk thinners, cleaning the gun out mainly.

There's other approaches like unfinished cellulose (the popular rattlecan matt black) or enamel paints, or epoxy sprays too, but I don't know much about those.

If I was to do it again... Well, I'll want it resprayed at some point and I'll get a pro to do it. I'll repair any damage myself but after that it's someone else's problem :D

[yorkie_chris]

How do you protect a matt black finish?

Clearcoat on that will turn it shiny will it not?

[Mike2165]

I got the paint for my curvy (Y9F) from www.paint4u.com (http://www.paint4u.com), but I got some paint for a car I'm in the middle of repairing from Halfords, who will mix it for you if you tell them the paint code. So far I'm in the middle of painting the hugger, will let you know how it all turns out!

[northwind]

The halfords matches tend to be a bit rubbish for metallic by the way, they get the colour perfect but not the metal content so it catches the light wrong. Found that out the hard way :( But hopefully yours will work out. I used Paints4U too, very handy to have a one-stop shop, and they're great to deal with. Good shop IMO

Yorkiechris, you can get matt top-coats... Though I can only remember seeing singlepacks. Or I suppose you could flat off a 2-pack, maybe, using scotchbrite pads maybe? Not too sure about that though!

http://www.paints4u.com/ProductDetails.aspx?productID=5862

[yorkie_chris]

Hmmm doesn't sound very doable.

Ever dented a tank?
Thinking of filling the hole in mine and reapraying, at the moment its about 1/8" deep in satin black spraypaint, ACF50 and road crud because I'm lazy.
will filler stick to the tank? (its pretty well scraped under the rattlecan paint)

[northwind]

You should really speak to someone who knows more about it than I do before writing it off, I'm no expert...

My spare tank was more dent than tank :mrgreen: Easy enough to sort though, if you've worked with filler, sticking wasn't a problem at all. Not sure what to do about rust prevention, I painted a little zinc primer onto the bare metal but it's maybe not needed, to be honest I've no idea really. You wouldn't know it had ever been damaged now though.

I always use Isopon filler, P40 I think it is, mainly because that's what my grandad always used and I like the smell ;) But it's good stuff, slow to harden is all.

[yorkie_chris]

Will give it a go, even if it falls off then its not like I'll have lost anything, as for writing the tank off, it still holds fuel :p

[muffles]

In my "youth" (well about 5 years ago now) I did a lot of work with filler, etc on cars :smt103

If you're going to fill something the first thing to do is to make sure the surface it's going on isn't smooth, so it can key to it. Just rough it up with some coarse sandpaper or something. I can't remember if it's Isopon P40 or P38 (it's been a while) but one of them is more for finishing, and the other for filling. You'll know it when you see the actual stuff - one of them looks like melted (greeny blue) fibreglass - I think it's the P40 from a quick google.

On a sort of related note, well going back to the OP I guess, most of the work in painting is the preparation. If you can get it all primered up (and the right level of smooth, maybe ask what grade sandpaper the painter wants it at to make sure) ready for paint then most of the work is done. Should make it cheaper.

[muffles]

Oh also there was another type of filler I used before, it seemed to be like metal fibres (it was silver, etc). One of the problems with filler is heating & cooling, if it changes dramatically compared to the material you're filling, it may crack. This was supposed to basically be metal to combat that - didn't see it make a massive difference but you might want to look into it (er...from that vague description you'll have fun finding it :lol: ).

Also dunno how deep the dent is but normally for filling you'd bash the dent out to just below surface level, to give less volume to fill. But I don't know if you can do that with a tank...

[muffles]

:smt103 actually re-read the OP and I'll add to my comments, if you do it as you mentioned then you should wet sand in between paint coats too, to build up the layer of paint whilst keeping it smooth overall. Only the final coat matters for shininess. As for problems, well as mentioned you'll find it really hard to get a good finish - it'll look good until you get up close, when up close I found it wasn't as shiny as factory/pro painting. That could be fixable with very fine wet sanding/waxing/polishing but it'd be a lot of effort I think (never tried it).
You might find problems with paint running if you're not careful, but that can be fixed during the wet sanding.

[hovis]

how much would you expect to pay for the tank & all fairings to be painted in a shop............£400?

[muffles]

Me? I have no idea to be honest...I "kind of" know prices for cars but not bikes, so I could be way off...I've heard figures in the region of £700-£800 for a full respray on a bike so if you mean excluding tail unit, then...£500? Really that's just a guess though. You said £400 so that's close enough :)

[G]

I paid £150 for a professional, insurance approved repairer to spray the boot and two doors of one of my old cars. It was a spot on job.