Major problem with respray on '96 VFR750. Help needed urgently

Hey all

I have a big problem with a respray that a shop did on the upper right fairing cowl on my '96 VFR.
I knew that the red pearl paintjob is a major PITA to get right especially if you try to color match the panels so that is why I was very hesitant to repair some nasty cracks around the right front indicator.

However I went to a guy who was highly recommended and had already done a job for me with great results, so I took the part to him asking to see if he can get it right. He said sure thing and that he would go by the -OEM- book.
Result? He fixed the cracks perfectly but the new color is a deeper/more brownish red that the rest of the bike.

I DON'T want to do a full respray especially since I do love that particular red hue that the bike has. I just want the red to match as good as possible.
He claims that he couldn't apply all the 3 layers properly because he was working in a small area (I did mention to respray a small part).
That guy took another shot at it but again it is way off in my eyes. He couldn't do anything better and gave up.

I was pissed off because I had specifically told him NOT to touch the paint on the lower part of the cowl where it meets the middle fairing and yet he repainted it anyway.
So now the panels are a mess and I am absolutely gutted because I adore my VFR. I had an argument with the guy and I decided to go to others to see what they would say but noone wants to go anywhere near that Honda pearl red.

So I am in a real fix. Getting a new OEM part is extremely expensive and besides it would be a different shade from what I read in the forums.
I seriously need your help.

Is there anything that can be done? Any paint that I could go and make and then try on it?
Could anyone take on this job of matching the color as good as possible? It doesn't have to be perfect but at least close.
Or if I send a small oem plastic part could anyone make a shade which would be close?
Needless to say I am ready to compensate for the effort taken.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

 

All but one red that is a secret Ferrari red fades. Red is a fugitive hue. Some blues and greens especially the synthetics (Pthalo) fall into this category.

Reds are even more troublesome when the "red" or close to it is a glaze (a glaze is a transparent coating over another color or base).

Find a good site on paints from the art side and look all this stuff up.

Bottom line. It will never match perfectly. Close is aboot the next best thing.

 

And this is why I repainted my whole bike 1 new color. Can't live with a hokey looking multi-colored paint job

Sent from my fancy telly.

 

It probably is the right red but years of sun will fad the factory color. Red is one of the worst colors to fade. Also some colors have variations right from the factory depending on the batch. I know one of the colors I used to spray a car hood had 7 variations for that paint code in the same year. The best thing to do is take a small piece into a paint shop that has the color scanner and they "should" be able to get it close.

 

Ride her at night no one will noticed
Sorry to hear about your :llama: as mention above RED will be hard to match. As the previous painter if he can paint the whole bike for you as no charge

 

What if somebody is into red bikes and nooners?

 

The scanners in auto paint suppliers are better than the scanners in housepaint stores. They are only close in matching capability for several reasons.

Red is a bitch anyway ya look at it.

Scanners give false readings if paint sample is high gloss, a glaze or has been clearcoated.

Paint and the pigments are bought and sold on the world market just like precious metals and pork bellys. If the shit hits the fan like is going on in Iraq as we speak, the buyers seek other sources for commodities.

The "natural" fractions especially titanium dioxide vary in hue greatly from source to source.

 

I had no idea about that stuff regarding pigments etc. Just yesterday found out when I started going into more detail about the whole "red pearl" colour is made. I am not going back to that guy and in fact I flat out told him that I don't have any faith in his work anymore.
He did do a good job fixing a broken bit and in respraying, but I had specifically told him NOT to go near the edge under the indicator because I knew that the panels wouldn't match. In fact I asked him to mask the area and cut off in the lower edge of the indicator side where the line could hide any masking lines but he didn't do as asked.
When I saw the final product it was clear that the lower edge was darker in shade. When I asked if he had sprayed that he was adamant that he hadn't.

Few hours later, put the panels back on and.... you can imagine I was well pissed. If there's one things I can't tolerate is lies and BS. Better to be up front and tell me than go about denying something that you've done.

Anyway, I will be respraying the whole damn thing at some point but here's the thing: faded or not, I LOVE the hue that the bike has at the moment. If the factory colour is deeper then I don't like it. You could argue that I could repaint the whole bike and leave it out in the sun to bleach but that's not really a practical solution.

Looking around the market I found a guy who's been respraying bikes and doing custom jobs for 25 years now and I went to see him.
He really is a bit of a nutter and a handful to work with but from past experience these people are usually the ones who know their stuff.
We talked for over 2 hours and for most of that time he was taking the mickey telling me "c'mon admit it; you're a bit of a freak arent ya"! :loyal:
At first he was suggesting to me not to bother and leave it like that and then come back at some point for a full respray.
In the end we agreed to look at the hue of the bike as it is now and try and see if we can match it adequately in a color scanner.
If yes then we will respray the messed up bit blending in the other areas and then I'm going to go back there for the full job.
What sold me on this was the fact that if we end up making a colour I'm going to have spare colour to touch up when things go bad.

To be totally honest I would prefer to just touch up the area that lines up against the side fairing but we'll see what's what.

 

Even fading is not going to happen either. The paint, again especially red, on the flat spots like the tail section are going to fade more that an area less exposed to the sun. There will be a difference too between a flat spot as indicated and the tank that has a different clearcoat applied.

Best? Repaint the whole bike.

The idea here by some reading, general information and definition of terms gives one a better grasp of the subject matter so when ya got a shitload of Greek pesos to shell out on a paint job you are not the one bullshitting.

 

Riders with unreaListicly high standards should just buy new parts cuz painters are about the most unreliable persons you can find in any trade. It's the fumes. And the coke.

Admitt it: you knew it wouldn't be perfect enough, right ?:crazy:

I always enjoy Badbilly, mostly for his terrible attitude, sometimes for his exacting information 411 or unconventional humor. He's our PJ O'Roark, bless his pressure-distilled bile and justified outrage.

 

Honestly, if I knew that the OEM part will match the rest of the bike's colour I would be seriously tempted to buy the new one, stupid as it would be to through out 300+ euro on a part that I already have.

That being said if I have to be totally honest I just didn't think it through well enough. I wanted the guy to paint over that small scratched/cracked area around the indicator and fade it out/blend it in the rest of the red paint. What I didn't realize was that the blending needs more space than was available on the small fairing part. Add to the fact that this guy just went ahead and happily painted all the way out to the edges of the fairing and the end result is a darker red fairing totally mismatching the previous gorgeous red of the side panel.

I knew that the red pearl is a very difficult colour to match but I was unaware that my colour at the moment through original paint, aging and "fading" is a unique shade that cannot be reproduced.

As it stands I know that the only real solution is to have a full respray but my issue with this is twofold:
1. In most likelyhood the "original" Honda red pearl as defined by the major colour companies is likely not the actual red that Honda was painting the bikes. It may be darker, more brown, whatever.

2. I absolutely love the red that my bike has now faded or not. If it is not the original then chances of matching it are close to nil. It just seems stupid to have to spend all that money to do a full respray on a paintjob that I love and has no other major issues (scratches, cracks etc) AND on top of that to end up with another red that will probably be different to the one I have.

I have to say that this is bugging me a lot more than I thought it would. My OCD is kicking in high drive over this; I went away for the weekend and all the time in the back of my head was this nagging voice reminding me that back home the bike sits there with a crappy paintjob. ( Yeah, I know I need help).
I kick myself in the head for being so stupid to take the damn thing to the painter in the first place; I was considering putting a sticker over the scratched area and now I wish I would have done so.
But as I can't turn back the time I need to find a solution and repainting everything would be the last resort. I will take the part to another guy plus (aaaarrrgh!) the side panel and he will do a color scanning to better match the tone and then blend it all in the side panel. Hopefully the end result will be better.

And besides, if the resulting tone we will have a colour formulation that we can reproduce and even do the whole respraying at some point.

 

Don't forget the gold and silver rattlecan paint visable around the painters nostrils..

 

Termwise, a shade is adding a color on the color wheel opposite the color that is to be shaded..

Sounds like for the rest you are fucked.

 

Like others have said; matching pearls is all but impossible. Make it red and you can forget it. It's likely that it'll never look right from every angle. And, imo, it doesn't matter if the paint you're matching is new, old, faded, custom or factory; the chances of closely matching it are very slim. This is due to the unavoidable paint mixing variations the you find from batch to batch. Throw in Badbilly's point about uneven fading and you're just not going to get it right (or right enough).

Again like others have said, you should just repaint the whole bike and be done with it. Otherwise, you could end up with excessively thick paint on that panel which will often lead to paint cracking and crazing issues (unless, of course, you sand the previous coats down).

 

Well, here's the thing; when that other guy painted the fairing he did manage to blend the darker shade into the original colour.
In other words, not ALL the upper fairing is painted over -it's only the right corner around the indicator but also unfortunately the area below it where it lines up with the middle fairing.
That darker shade is blended in quite seamlesly in all the other areas so I am thinking that if he can blend in such a darker shade, then the other guy can just as well blend in a lighter shade -just enough so that it won't show as much.

And besides for what is worth, the whole left side of the bike was painted over in Germany by the previous owner and although it is a slightly lighter shade than the tank (which is OEM) they did manage to blend it all in.
Oh and one more thing. In one month's time I am leaving Athens to travel across all of Europe and I can't afford to spend my budget on a full repsray.
So before I go all out and repaint the whole damn thing I'll just give it one last try.
I am not looking to get it perfect -the whole left side is lighter in shade and I just let it be. Pretty good will do.

 

What your painter did I think was a spot fix much like an auto paint shop would do a whole panel on a car. The repair is done first. Dent ding tear or other, is filled with Bondo or lead (old school)sanded then primed then sanded again. The area around the repair is rubbed back with compound and the "matching" paint is applied. This works best with nitro cellulose lacquer. The other paints, not as well but doable.

The blending is thin at the edges where it's "blended" with the original paint. Thin paint fades more than thicker paint (greater millage) with reds being still the worst.

Go do the European tour and forget about that paint for awhile. Unless you bring it up and unless some dude goes over your bike with a magnifier, ain't nobody gonna know but you about that paint glitch.

Maybe you can get the same dude who mismatched that part to do a total repaint for you for a discount.

Why am I thinking about the punch line of the old painters joke that goes, "Repaint and thin no more." ??

 

Amen to that S-man.

BZ