[shadowhunter04]

Yeah, I'd go with a mouse sander in this case... the black and decker one I got works great (though it still takes a while)

[Erki]

+1 on what mojoe said.

[jdumont]

This is what i used on the tank....

http://www.3mestore.com/3m-paint-and-rust-stripper.html

Worked like a charm in like 30 minutes the whole thing was stripped and ready for wet sanding and prime. Its VERY stiff feeling in the store, you think it will eat right through the metal but once you start using it you realize that is what you need to do it right... and quickly!

There are other 3M scotch brite pads in the same form factor as this but less aggressive. I used one of those for the plastics and again, a quick wonderful job!

Cant say it enough!

FYI I bought both of these at auto zone and have seen them locally at other hardware stores (Bennys)...

[Erki]

those work good for stripping to bare metal. The scotch brite pads work well for scuffing but id doesnt sand smooth orange peel or anything. Just scuffs the paint as is.

[jdumont]

Right, thats what i figured he was complaining about. Smoothing orange peel couldnt hurt your arms that much since your not really applying much pressure or speed. I wouldnt wanna use anything other than paper and my hands to smooth the clear coat for sure.

[Mojoe]

Right, thats what i figured he was complaining about. Smoothing orange peel couldnt hurt your arms that much since your not really applying much pressure or speed. I wouldnt wanna use anything other than paper and my hands to smooth the clear coat for sure.

smoothing orange peel is as simple as a polisher and some good polish.

I will say it again.....you shouldn't use any kind of sander, unless you want sander swirls on your finished job.....and I can pretty mush guarantee that is what you will have. if you can't sand that all down by hand in one day....well, something is wrong.

[Londob5]

Well, like I said, girly-man arms...what can I say, I haven't been to the gym daily in like 7 years, and even then I was more of a distance runner than a weightlifter.

I did have to use a slow-speed dremel sanding disk to get into the crevices where the fairing bolts sit. Its a pre, so there are lots of those spots on the large fairings.

I look into a small non-orbital sander and see what happens. I still have the large fairings and the belly fairings to sand yet. For the last 3 days I've been plastic welding. The previous owner must have dropped this think like a billion times, and then instead of repairing the cracks by welding and painting, drilled holes and used zip ties. There were 3 of these areas on the left side and 2 areas on the right. The belly also has an area like that on each side. I'll post pics after all the welding and sanding is done, so ya'll can see what the Kat-tastrophe looked like.

Thanks everyone for the input, btw. It has helped!

[Erki]

good to hear, cant wait to see the bike done.

[whitecl0ver]

y is this thread NSFW? I didn't see anything bad in here

[Londob5]

y is this thread NSFW? I didn't see anything bad in here

Just my first post. It wasn't really that bad, but I wanted to be able to swear if I really needed to.