[Astro4x4]

but can you get the "wet look" with urethane???

Ya a decent urethane with a good wet sanding and buff will, but ya need to have a good buffer and the proper compound.

[wyzat520]

I can chime in here. I paint cars by trade.... I have actually painted a bike with the duplicolor stuff and was not impressed. Lacquer paint wont crack on its own its due to outside containments. But it will get dull faster especially on the tank that sees gas spills. Urethane is the industry standard just about. Its good stuff. Your much better off going with the slightly more expensive stuff if you are going to do it. When I paint bikes or anything for that matter this is how I do it... I realize it varries like I said this is my way...

Last bike I painted I removed all the plastics. Took off all the decals and adhesive using a heat gun and a solvent to remove the left over residue.

I then sanded the old paint piece by piece with 320 grit. It had a lot of scratches and needed to be primed anyway.

Primed it, block it, finished it in 500 or 600 and got read for paint.

If the original piece is in good condition you can paint over paint. Just sand the panels flat (remove all old paint texture and minor scratches) with 600 and a grey scuff pad for hard spots. Apply your base coat right over that.

Put 2-3 coats of base

I put 2-3 coats of clear keeping in mind I plan on sanding and buffing the clear so I put on extra material

Just keep in mind to make sure the paints flashed off between coats. Use a tack rag in between coats of base coat only not clear. I clean my base coat gun and put it away then mix my clear and by then im positive the solvent in the base coat is fully evaporated and not going to leave me with solvent pop. Everyone does it different.

As far as paint Whatever you do for base/clear I suggest a good urethane 2k primer. Your foundation for paint is the most important part. I do not like the duplicolor primer its very thin and not so durable. You can put a lacquer over a urethane primer just as long as the primer is 100% cured. But if you do use a laquer primer. Primer your piece sand everything smooth with 320-400 then spray and addition 2 lights coats and sand it with 600. Lacquer primer tends to have scratches show through. Im not sure why but everytime I use transtar lacquer primer if I dont put on those extra coats I see scratches in the paint even when I finish it off with 600 in the first place. Maybe its just me idk.

[ICEG]

what i did is use duplicolor paint and then for the finish i used the metal flake clear coat from them

it turns out awsome

make shure you use high quality prep materials or it will go orange peal on you