Painting supplies

[Crackshot]

Hey all, got a quick question for you.

Alright, I'm looking at completely sanding/repainting my 2000 Kat 600, and here is my plan. I want to have a professional look (I'm not very skilled myself), so I plan on doing the sanding myself. I have a friend who works a lot with fiberglass and body work, and he is going to help me fix some of the road rash (via bondo or some equivalent) and a small chunk missing from the fairing (The top of the little bar throught the two wholes). After we get it all primed and sanded, its going to a painter to have a professional coat, primer, the works. So here are my questions.

First, Knowing that the two of us can do a good job sanding/priming, is this a good idea? Will painters not like painting something in this fashion?

Second, Roughly how many cans of primer should I buy? (I plan on ordering all the suplies online before hand)

Third, any reccomendations on types of primer for the plastics (my only experience has been on metal body work)

and finally, any advice for a first time bike painter would be great.


Thanks,
Crack

[Black_peter]

Check out Sweet Lou's painting how-to..
If after that you don't think you can paint it your self...

I would NOT prime the parts.. do the repairs only.
If you have a shop do just the paint, they might not hold themselves liable if the paint peels 24 hours after it's done. they will blame the primer.
Or they will insist on stripping and priming anyway.. Just my opinon

[Crackshot]

hmm... good point. Ill keep it under consideration.

[duff daddy]

yea dont do the priming your self beacuse depending on the type of paint they use ppg is not interchangeable with some hok clears, and dupont clears, so depening on what your useing, also dont prime it for the fact that you wont get it clean like i needs to be, you need to hit it with some wax and grease remover then some waterbased solvent to get the grime and waterbased sludge off there as well as your finger prints and oil, they have all the stuff to do that and they will know their products better then your myster stuff

[BraadaJim]

Well by doing it the way you want you are gonna have a real catch22 on your hands. As the others stated, bodyshops don't like to get parts that are already primered for compatibility issues. That being said though the only way to make sure that your panel is right and that you have removed all the pinholes, sand scratches, and other imperfections is to get an even coat on it so you can see. (if you see it in the primer,you'll see it in the paint)

My suggestion is to do all the bodywork, sand,sand,sand,sand,sand,sand (yes it will take that much sanding) and then hit it with a coat of FILLER primer and then sand, sand, sand again until it is all gone except for the little bits left to fill scratches and pinholes. You will take 99% of this coat off if you are doing it right.

When you take the parts in it is important that you tell them exactly what you did and even more important that you tell them the brand of paint you used. Done right they will hit it with a sealer primer before painting. This hides absorbtion differences in repairs and provides a good compatable tack coat for the paint. The small amount of filler primer you leave to fill holes and scratches won't be an issue as long as they know.

If you try to prime the whole panel to make it look pretty they will either tell you that they.....
1)won't touch it
2)Will need to strip it before they paint
3)Won't guarantee the work because it's not all their paint.

[Crackshot]

I think based upon my skill level and how I want (invision) the bike looking, that I'll just do the sand/body work myself, and let them do the rest.

Thanks for the advice everyone.

[DreKat]

sweet lou helped me out alot.

I paint my bike this spring from scratch.

first sanded it with a 200 grit paper, then ended up using 3 cans of promer, a 600 grit paper. First coat of paint, 600 grit sand paper. Second coat, 1000 grit sand paper. third coat, 1000 grit. Forth coat. In all 3 cans of primer, One and a half quarts od dupont paint and 3 cans of clear coat. all done by myself. It took me a week but so worth it. I get a lot of attention when i pull up with other bikes. The key is an unique color. The only problem i have is now there are 3 bike out there with the same color but i was the first.

[Crackshot]

Alright, and so you you just take off the clear coat with the sand paper, right?

[chinto]

if you have a an air compressor, i would look at buying an hvlp primer spray gun (they can be found pretty cheap) and using a good grade filler primer. I just sprayed my bike with standox 2k filler primer and the coverage is amazing. I have done a fair bit of backyard bodywork on cars before primarily using rattlecan primers. After using the HVLP to spray a good primer I will never go back to a rattle can primer. It is that much better! Hopefully in the next week or 2 I will paint the bike. I have usually had a buddy of mine (ex body guy) do the majority of my spraying, but this project is all mine. I just need to decide on a color and git er done!

I just bought myself a professioanl grade SATA spray gun and I am anxious to try it out. It cost an arm and a leg, but Im told that it will make all the difference in the world.

Personally I prefer to paint it myself, sure I may end up with a few minor flaws, but when it is all said and done I can say I did it. If the flaws (if any) are that noticeable it will just give me a reason to do it again next year!

[Mojoe]

sweet lou helped me out alot.

I paint my bike this spring from scratch.

first sanded it with a 200 grit paper, then ended up using 3 cans of promer, a 600 grit paper. First coat of paint, 600 grit sand paper. Second coat, 1000 grit sand paper. third coat, 1000 grit. Forth coat. In all 3 cans of primer, One and a half quarts od dupont paint and 3 cans of clear coat. all done by myself. It took me a week but so worth it. I get a lot of attention when i pull up with other bikes. The key is an unique color. The only problem i have is now there are 3 bike out there with the same color but i was the first.

WOW.....no offense, but a total waste of paint. it sounds like you completely took the long way around. I sandblasted my bike right down to bare plastic, and 1 quart of epoxy high build primer was more than enough. One and a half quarts of paint??? On a bike? I only plan on using 2 quarts to paint my volvo. If you used basecoat/clearcoat, that means you had 3 quarts of paint once it is mixed with reducer. That is easily enough to paint a whole car. all that sanding in between is more harmful than good. 1000 grit is way to fine to give the paint something good to grip to. 600 is low enough....I use 500 myself. In between the coats of clear I will use a 1000 grit sometimes, but most of the time is is just a green scotch-brite pad.
I am willing to bet that once the paint breaks loose from the edge, ot it gets chipped, you will eventually see some serious flaking.
Anyway.....if these methods work for you guys and you are happy with them, that is all that counts. I just think you might have dumped more $ into paint than you needed to. My paint job came out as good as it can get, and I did it with a pint of paint and a 3/4 of a quart of clear.
There is such thing as too much paint on a vehicle.

[DreKat]

when you have the supplies and the equiptment time and money are not the issue. the only one that i am trying to please is me.

[Mojoe]

when you have the supplies and the equiptment time and money are not the issue. the only one that i am trying to please is me.

I understand what you are saying...and if you really enjoy doing it that is cool. Anyway, the whole painting thing has gotten all out of whack over the past few years. I grew up around it, know several people who do collision work, have a good aquaintance who is a tech rep for RM paint, and we all agree on one thing....and that is that somewhere along the way people have it in their heads that you need 5 coats of paint and 10 coats of clear to get a nice paintjob. I think American Chopper and American HotRod are responsible for that. They must have a conspiracy going with the paint manufacturers to sell more paint.
I have seen guys brag about their $2-3000 paint jobs with 8 coats of clear and it doesn't look any better than some I have seen at half the price with only 2-3 coats of clear. One thing for sure.....the guys who do painting love the ones who want to keep dishing out the money for the extra work. They sure as hell aint going to tell you you don't need it.

Anyway....I was just trying to express that all that work wasn't neccessary. But hey...if it works for you...

[duff daddy]

oh and to go with mojo, that clear you buy say its a low price one well its gonna have a yellow hue to it and the more coats of clear you put on no matter how much sanding you do its gonna turn yellow, now if you spend big bux and get the more expencive one from ppg,dupont martin sr, yea its gonna be perfectly clear thats why its that expencive, FOR MOST BASE COAT CLEAR COAT OPERATIONS PPG RECOMENDS 2-3 COATS OF CLEAR MAX!!!!!!!! im in school for this stuff so i can show you the notes if you want and mojo has done it his whole life so id listen to him

[Mojoe]

oh and to go with mojo, that clear you buy say its a low price one well its gonna have a yellow hue to it and the more coats of clear you put on no matter how much sanding you do its gonna turn yellow, now if you spend big bux and get the more expencive one from ppg,dupont martin sr, yea its gonna be perfectly clear thats why its that expencive, FOR MOST BASE COAT CLEAR COAT OPERATIONS PPG RECOMENDS 2-3 COATS OF CLEAR MAX!!!!!!!! im in school for this stuff so i can show you the notes if you want and mojo has done it his whole life so id listen to him

actually it is only in the recent decade or so that clear has improved. Before bc/cc became the standard, people used to use clear when metal flaking a vehicle. in case some of you never saw this, it is nothing more than glitter that was added to clear and sprayed over the paint. it was the "cool" thing to do in the late 70's and early 80's. it was good for 2-3 years max, then the clear turned yellow. In fact, sometimes it was so bad it looked like you sprayed the car with piss...lol.