Automotive painting --- re-finishing bodywork etc

A hood is the perfect part to learn on.

I see ground clearance was a priority. That is awesome, I can think of alot of situations where something like that would be perfect.

 

I painted this light tower 2 years ago with rust-oleum. I didn't have enough of one color to do the whole thing, so I mixed blue, yellow and black.
This is the ratio I use:
5 parts rust-oleum
2 parts acetone
1/3 part hardener




This is all the rust I have found so far

All the black parts are painted with POR15 and POR15 top coat, applied with a foam brush or roller.

 

Here is the finished tank I was working on. Turned out great, still have to do final polish, you can probably see some cutting compound here and there as I havent done the final detai.

 

Wow she is sharp. I love the look of a cafe racer style bike but at 6’4” 275lbs I just don’t fit well or I guess I don’t look right on it. Good looking work.

 

That’s a great looking bike. I’m in the middle of building out my XS750 as well.

 

haha, yeah I can see where you are coming from, as you may know once you start dialing in a bike for a guy your size you have to sacrifice some aesthetics it seems.

Thank you, I appreciate that. It has been quite a bit of work, but I am very happy with how it turned out. Id really love to see the XS when its done, never owned one of those but always have liked them.

 

Getting some rust fixed on the fj62 I'm repainting

 

Now this is a topic I can get behind! I've been painting bikes and cars in my garage as a hobby for some time now. Mostly because I don't want to pay someone else for the work. I've definitely have my share of failures and life lessons during that time. Lesson #1: painting in apartment garages is hard to do without pissing off the neighbors. That's the main reason I bought a house to be honest.

Here are a few that I've done over the years... Sorry if its too many pics

My SIL's SV650 tanks and fairings (one day she'll put it back together):


My old CBR1000RR - changed from matte black w/ gold wheels to 1936 Ford blue on white

My old 81 KZ that I chopped up and painted VW colors.


Soon I'll be putting full race fairings on my brothers Triumph Thruxton and changing the color from green to blue. Just in time for riding season. Then I hope to paint my 52 Chevy that I've been working on for a few years now.

 

very cool, you should share some of these pics in the motorcycle BS thread: https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/motorcycles-bs-thread-2-0.420753/page-1149#post-25125017

 

That first bike looks like A LOT of work. Care to share what your process is like for that in "simple" terms? Like layering, taping the lines, flash times for seperate colors, clear etc...? I have never messed with airbrushing, and I have gotten frustrated just doing standard two tone paint.

Also any pics of it finished? Looks like a modern sportbike tank with vintage headlight fairing? (ah Just read its not back together yet, post some pics up when it is!)

 

It really is a bit of work. One thing I struggled with when I started painting at home was patience between the steps. I think this bike took me about a week of evenings and a full Sunday to complete. But there may have been beers involved which slows me down. Overall, it really is a lot of taping and masking off areas you don't want to paint. You will spend about 90% of your time prepping for paint compared to actually painting.

I didn't get a lot of pics of this specific project, but here was my process in really simplified steps:

1st - After all the body work I shoot a base color (silver here), I let that dry then I wet sand it with 600 grit paper. Then I get a general idea of the design laid out in tape. Most of where the tape is will stay silver in this case.


2nd - I pick a color and work on specific panels, covering the areas I don't want painted with that color. In this case I started with the base purple colors If I had more colors for the 'details', I would continue that process across other panels.


3rd - Because I know that the rest of the colors after this would be using candy clears, I shot the black and added shadows where I needed them. Remember to mask off areas that you do not want to paint, like the purple areas here.


4th - After the black, I whipped out the candy colors (HOK cobalt and a voodoo purple, or something like that) and shot the whole thing. Again, remember to mask off areas that you do not want to paint. In this case, I shot most all of it in blue then followed up with the purple highlights using an airbrush.


5th - Once all that dries (times will vary depending on temp and humidity), you can peel the tape. This is what mine looked like.


6th - I decided at this point (or I just forgot to do it in order) that I wanted to add pink to the 'wings' and up top. So I masked it off everything I didn't want painted again and airbrushed that color on. Because it was airbrushed on, it dried fairly quick. So I peeled off the rest of the tape and shot it with 3-4 coats of Tamco hi-impact clear. This stuff is great for bikes and helmets. These pics were after the clear.


7th - Let your freshly cleared parts dry. I live in Texas, so the sun helps a lot here.


8th - after a week or so you can wet sand out any imperfections and buff it to a high gloss finish. I haven't done that step yet because the parts are not ready to be installed. But there are plenty of forums out there that cover this in detail.

 

Getting work done on the fj62... hopefully will be posting completed pics within a couple weeks

 

I painted my trailer. Fenders were done with a can. Rest with a brush.

 

Hey Gang sure love this forum and everything about it !
Ive been a prepper/painter since I was out of High School,and I love sharing my (old school) knowledge.
A few things I can impart to everyone dabbling,trying out, or becoming a novice Bodyman /Painter.
1. Prep is 90% of your bodywork/paint (especially paint)
2. Be detailed oriented,humbled,and willing to learn.
3. Always shoot for 100%, if its not right,stop, do it over.

Here are couple of corn hole boards I painted for the kids at work

 

Looks great, Im sure Ill have some questions for you in the future if you don't mind.

Im done with this land cruiser, It turned out amazing. First whole care I have painted. Will have some good pics posted up soon. I have been daily driving it the past few weeks.

 

As a bodyman/painter for over 30 years I can agree with you. It always bothered me that the painter gets all the credit for a nice paint job when the bodyman did all the prep work. Sometimes it takes 2-3 hundred hours to restore a car and only a few hours to paint it. Don't get me wrong, a good painter can make or break a restoration but the prep work makes a painters job alot easier.

 

Yeah,I remember during my days as a prepper I had the occasional chevy or Dodge conversion van with multiple stripes and colors.
2hrs of masking and planning for 15-20 minutes of painting.

 

Amazing work!

 

As I mentioned before, I was about to put full fairings on my brothers bike and paint it. Here's how it turned out. All done in the garage in my makeshift booth using Tamco OEM color matched paint and their high impact clear. I honestly believe anyone can get good results with a little patience and some good preparation.

Makeshift paint booth w/ kerosene heater to help curing. This was before the clear. LED lights don't photograph well. This looks darker than it is.


Better lighting after the base coat.


A little air/sun drying


After a cut and buff and put back together.

 

Going to bump this thread realizing I never posted pictures of the land cruiser I painted. This probably took me ~ 3 weeks all in with disassembly rust repair, bodywork and finishing then reassembly... crazy how shooting the paint itself was like 1% of the time spent overall. It came out great though.