Lessons in Rattle Can Painting - Things (not) to do

[Oz-78GL1000]

So I decided almost immediately after getting my '78 that I'd do everything I could to paint over the existing chrome on the bike. I also decided that I wanted to make the bike something patterned after the F-14 Tomcat and the VF-84 Jolly Rogers. I know, I'm a nerd, so shoot me! Anyway, the first piece to be painted was the easiest to come off, the rear fender.

Before anyone gets all up in arms, the chrome on this bike was in pretty rough shape, full of pitting and chips so I didn't see much point of trying to save it.

Having said that....

I started by just washing the fender with good old fashioned soap and water to get as much of the loose dirt and gunk off as I could then went and got myself a 4.5" twisted carbon steel wire wheel for my angle grinder and just went to town knocking off all the dead chrome, paint over spray from the PO, and everything else that would come off the piece. Admittedly the fender looked pretty good to me after I'd done that, the rust stains on the chrome were gone and it looked presentable. I was tempted to toss it back on the bike and call it a job poorly done.

Anyway, so I'm about to commit some pretty heinous painting atrocities here, so consider yourselves warned. I am not a painter and this is my first attempt at painting a piece of metal.

Fist step was using some good old Rustoleum primer, white. Put on seven or eight thin coats to get the coverage I was looking for.

This honestly it where the first mistake was made so I've been told. Apparently to hide all the imperfections in the chrome plating of the underlying metal I should have applied a lot more primer and sanded between coats to fill in the low spots, whoops. There are probably numerous more mistakes I've made along the way, so please, help me out here guys.

While that was left to cure for two days, per the directions on the can, I was left to ponder what color the part would ultimately become. For this I consulted a few buddies who talked me down from going with a glossy light grey color to match the typical appearance of a late 70's F-14 in favor of the "more manly" Gunmetal Grey. A quick trip to O'Reilly Auto found the can of paint I was looking for from Dupli-Color. Gunmetal Grey which apparently matches the paint for GM vehicles, who knew? Also collected was a can of Rustoleum undercoat and Gloss Clear Coat Acrylic Enamel.

Today I spent the after noon painting the fender, which surprisingly ended up taking almost the entire can of Dupli-Color to finish.

Two coats deep....


Four....


Added under coat - 3 coats


And after 6 coats and a further 40 minutes of dry time after the last coat it was brought inside.


I personally think it came out pretty good for a first attempt at automotive style painting and gives me some encouragement to move forward with pulling other parts off the bike to paint. Tomorrow I'll go ahead and give it a few coats of clear. Then once that's and cured properly I'll give it a good wax/polish and put it back on the bike.

[vapor_trail]

I think it looks terrific!

[robin1731]

So you didn't sand between primer coats? And you didn't sand after the primer, before the top coat? That is a lot of paint already. And you want to clear over the top of that?

[Fred Camper]

Sure looks like a great paint job, but hard to be sure in photos.

On a bare metal situation like your fender, another option is Self Etching primer from Duplicolor or others. Sprays like any rattle can primer, several thin coat is best, but is reported to possess better adhesion. Just tried it on a Lester Rear wheel I am painting up. If the metal requires a filling primer, then spray over the self etch stuff after 36 hours I think.

One key to sanding between coats is to remove the over-spray powder. Your over-spray that lands on the part is filth that you do not want to build up. It may look like dirt in the paint if you do not remove this between coats.

Be sure to get a good respirator the lack of a good one will make you loose interest in furthering your talent.

[Oz-78GL1000]

Something that I didnt mention was that the primer was sanded lightly and cleaned with IPA before the color coat was applied. i followed the instructions on the cans for application of all three products i have used so far. However, the primer I used said that it didnt require sanding before application or between coats so I just skipped that step.

The Dupli-Color paint says that it needs to be clear coated so that's the story on that one.

[sunnbobb]

We all start somewhere, good job. Now for the clear coat, check out the instructions found in a google search about "Color sanding"...

[Oz-78GL1000]

Will do, Sunnbobb

[Oz-78GL1000]

Soooooooo got the fender sanded, ugh, and polished yikes!

Though I came to a conclusion... The sanding wasn't really worth the effort because of the poor prep of the fender. Whoops. Looking at the fender it looks like a fairly standard OEM paint job which I'm pretty happy with. It's very shiny but isn't mirror smooth because of all the low spots caused by the chipped chrome underneath. Thankfully the majority of the ugly spots are covered when the fender is on the bike and this gives me a taste of what I'll need to do to get the front fender cleaned up and better prepped since that's going to be "out there" for all the world to see 100%.

I'm debating how much of the bike I feel like stripping down since I can't technically have the bike in non-running condition for longer than a day thanks to my land lord. So I don't think I'm going to be able to repaint the frame at any point (at least not painting it properly). Anyway, the upshot of this adventure is that I know I can do this now and that it isn't that hard to do. It's just an investment of some time and a few bucks worth of rattle cans.



It's gotten a little dusty already *sigh*

Photo on the bike.

[Fred Camper]

When you wet sand between coats with 400, then the final coat in successive grits up to 1500, the results of a spray can is pretty amazing. It then looks wet and really shines wax or no. Well worth the effort if the part is protected from frequent chips. On a fender, it may not be worth the effort, but on my side covers it was.

[gregforesi]

If you're not a good painter (like me) you will become an excellent sander. It's mostly attention to detail and taking your time. I hung some blue tarps in a corner of the barn to make a 8x10 paint booth (no wind and no bugs) and hung some pipes to hang parts from. A filter mask (not just a paper one) is a good idea. New lungs are expensive. Good lighting is important so you can see your curtains and drips. Then you get to sand some more. I'd never used 2000 grit for anything (but I have now).
The real hard part is looking at a piece and saying "OK - that one's done" without second guessing yourself two days later.

[rcmatt007]

sounds to me like you tried to hide the imperfections by adding lots and lots of paint. that really won't work. You can use a primer filler to fill smally imperfections but you need to keep sanding it down as you go. this will leave the filler in the holes and chips but not allow build up elsewhere.

I will put on a sandable primer and sand it down so really very little is left. sometimes using different shades of primer helps you identify where the imperfections are because of the color difference left in the scratch or pit.

[Oz-78GL1000]

rcmatt007 - Actually I admitted that I had messed up on the primer stage by not using a primer that could be sanded to fill in the low spots. The goal was to cover the ugly chrome and protect the metal underneath from further rusting and bubbling chrome. The painting was done to fulfill my satisfaction in the piece's appearance before moving on to the next step, whatever that might have been.

For the front fender, which is in admittedly better shape, I will be using a primer that will fill and take sanding so that I can have a nice smooth metal surface to work with before I start painting.

[Fred Camper]

That is how we all improve. Since you are getting better at this it is a good time to get a good respiratory if you are using the paper masks.

[rcmatt007]

Oz, not meaning to be critical. painting over chrome is a PITA. if it is coming off the metal below, nothing will stop that. Aluminum is even worse than steel in that regard.

[Oz-78GL1000]

rcmatt, I'm sorry I was short, and actually the suggestion about using different color primers is one that I will definitely be doing for future projects. I may end up yanking the rear fender off again after I get everything else painted to my satisfaction to knock all the paint off and redo it as you and many MANY others have suggested with a sandable/filler primer. I realized that I never put up a picture of what the bike looked like before, so I thought I'd go ahead and toss up a before and after.

Chrome -


Gunmetal -


Just waiting for the bullets and LED tags to come in the mail so it can be quasi street legal again. It still needs a headlight housing and front turn signals then get it off of non-op status. So much still to do. And the rear fender makes the rest of the bike just look bad...