RWB 1996 - a winter restoration...

This is looking great, the colour scheme is perfect for the VFR , it's going to be a real head turner. I have only just come across this thread and have enjoyed following it through, looking forward to the finished pictures. You should be proud of what you have achieved.

 

Puuurty work!!!

 

Keep up the good work.

:nono: Au contraire mon ami!

Been quietly following your thread Matt. Just wanted to tell you something that you already know.

Your bike is gonna look SWEET when it's done! :whoo:

Glad to see that you decided to go with the White rims. Looks awesome. :high5:

Decal placement looks pretty good. Will you be running a pair of White VFR750 decals on the tail section and a Black bum pad on the seat cowl too?
Would totally fit in with the RC30 look and be icing on the cake.

Gotta say that I agree wholeheartedly with Concours Grad though,anything worth doing is worth doing right.
Take your time and get it right my friend.

Might help you to know that it took my buddy Pez and I four tries to get the paintwork right on the rims for my Ducati. Which meant that I had to strip,clean,and prep those rims four times so that he could squeeze the trigger on the paint gun and try again. It was slow painstaking work that took an entire week to do each time that I had to do it.

We took home three First Place trophies with that bike Matt. In the end "It Is" worth the effort,I promise.

 

@Stosh - thanks for the kind encouragement. I will be using white "VFR750F" decals on the tail, but no bum pad - the 4G seat won't accommodate it. I'm also not keen on attaching anything to an otherwise pristine (and coveted) solo cowling.

 

The bike is looking really good man. I am no expert on painting and sorry if this advice has been given before, but your wrinkling problems could be due to the fact that the previous coat hasn't dried/cured enough. Just my 2 cents worth. Keep trying though, it will be worth it in the end.

 

^^^ Nope, definitely not a curing or dry time issue - well, maybe sorta...

...The mid panel that wrinkled up had been drying for over three weeks. From my understanding, enamel has a ton of solvents in it that are designed to go after the last applied coat and chemically bond to it. These solvents gas out extremely fast, but if the base coat is already bone dry, there is nothing for the solvents to go after. They end up quasi-reactivating the base coat and pull it up. If the paint has been dry too long, and the coat is too thick, this happens.

Some clear coat enamels are really "hot" solvent wise, others are not. Turns out that Plasti-Kote is a "hot" enamel. You need to be extremely careful when applying them to a bone dry surface (i.e. lots of mist coats with a flash time in between every coat).

I had great success with my uppers this weekend with this technique: Thin base coat applied (not 100% coverage), wait 10 minutes, additional thin base coat applied (now at 100% coverage), wait 10 minutes, 3rd base coat (applied if needed for full coverage), wait 15 minutes, pearl/clear coat mixture airbrushed on (100% coverage for evenness, checked with flashlight/sun), wait 10 minutes, thin clear coat applied (not 100% coverage), wait 5 minutes, final quasi-wet clear coat applied. Let parts dry in shade.

Every panel that I have put all coats on at once has turned out great.

Enamels are a tricky bitch to get right. One of my hot rod buddies in SoCal told me that "the Big E (as in enamels) requires you to SLOW DOWN" when you paint. You can't rush them (by laying down heavy coats), and you're best off if you do all of your stages at once.

When I started my project, I was painting every panel in the same color all at once, then going back with clear. That was my first mistake. The second was treating enamel paints as though they were lacquers - meaning that I was laying down "wet" coats - which is also no good with enamels.

 

Thanks for the info Sir. (And please get some more pictures up!)

 

I'll wheel her out tonight and snap a few pictures in the daylight. All (well, most) of the panels are hing, but the stripes are now complete...

My FB fans are demanding the very same!

Hopefully the t-storms hold off.

 

As promised:

 

I hope you are aware of how blimin' awesome that looks.

I am not a regular poster here and somehow the subscription feature missed some posts this weekend. Glad it finally caught me up.

Q about the base coats: With you applying base and then clear top coats that quickly, how are you masking the different colors/sections? Do you apply mask to tacky paint?

And what equipment are you using?

Thanks, and keep it up!

 

Because I am an advocate for the quality of today's rattle cans, that's what has been used thus far for this project. The biggest issue that people have with rattle cans is that they leave orange peel behind, which I am 2000-2500 grit wet sanding out, and then polishing back. The final clearcoat is being applied through an airbrush, but is de-canted clearcoat from a can.

BTW - all of my negative results are due to my ignorance of how to properly use enamel paint, not the product itself.

Many expressed their doubts that you can paint a bike from a can (and have it turn out anywhere near decent), but I aim to completely shatter this myth. This is the second bike I have spray painted, and the results will speak for themselves when it's done. I believe they already do.

Not only is this method FAR cheaper than buying paint pre-mixed by the quart, you can buy a can, spray it, and if you don't like it, you're not married to it.

Here's my materials list:
Plasti-Kote gloss Swift Red enamel
Plasti-Kote gloss Bright White enamel
Rustoleum Metallics Cobalt Blue enamel
DuPont "French Blue" enamel pint (custom mixed color - airbrushed on)
Rustoleum Automotive Crystal Clear acrylic enamel (used from can and decanted and airbrushed for clear and pearl coats)
25g bag of Satin Silver Pearl dust
3M ScotchCal Light Gold Metallic 3/8" striping tape
VFR750 Decal set #814 from xtremedecals.com
Makita laser level (for laying out the stripes across complex shapes)
3M green masking tape
Meguiar's Gold Class wet sandpaper 1000/1500/2000/2500

As far as product reviews, Plasti-Kote cans are extremely difficult to work with. Rustoleum is a vastly superior product.

Each section of color is done individually using the multi-coat technique described earlier.

 

I thought I read rattle cans. I didn't want to offend if that wasn't the case. Some are very anti rattle can.

So you base-base-base clear-clear-clear each section separately, with the mask in place for the whole thing? How are you blending the clear between sections?

Maybe I just don't understand how masking is really done.

 

Maybe I don't understand masking, either! lol

There is a final clearcoat going on with the airbrush after the panels get wet sanded down all over.

I wet sanded the tank down to 2000 grit last night, and debated whether or not to go to 2500. From a distance, you can really see the paint shine, but it's really matte up close. I think that it's ready for the decals and it's final clear coat.

I am sanding down the masking ridges between the stripes prior to the final clear coat(s) with 1000/1500 grit paper, and then the gold stripe tape will cover it up 100% after everything is dry.

 

Super nice job but hurry up! I wanna see all together!

 

Good stuff! :thumb:

I am really excited to see that you can get this kind of results with rattle cans. Gives me hopes/thoughts/tinglie feelings about what I might be able to accomplish myself. I'd like to acquire a VFR project of my own at some point. I have an old (antique actually) air setup and can beg/borrow a compressor. Seems viable if its just for the top coat.

 

Aint you glad you didnt leave all that wrinkle on the bike?????



That bike is beautimus so far! cant wait to see sdtripes and clearcoat on it!


You have reason to be proud!

 

I wasn't about to leave the wrecked pieces (i.e. LH tail, RH mid) in the state that they were in. The red was too wrinkled to even consider hanging on the bike.

However, there are a few bits of wrinkle that are on "hardly noticeable" spots, and are small areas to begin with. I am going to carefully and lightly sand them smooth and clear coat over these spots. All "top" surfaces (i.e. most reflective, most visible, etc.) are top quality.

One note about the compressor and the airbrush - make sure you have some sort of moisture separation system going before you even consider this. If you thought that the wrinkling was bad (well, it is), fish eyes because there was moisture are just as bad if not worse.

 

Tank teaser:



Will clear coat when too humid weather stops being so humid.

 

MAN VT DUDE, what a great job- bet you learned a few tricks along the way- LOOKS FREEKIN AWESOME, :thumb:
Have a drink on me