Spray Painting - Open Invitation

[Leong]

Hey NinjaNanna - Well done for posting your pics for the education of others. I'm sure this thread will be a good resource for KB'ers in the future.

My first time too - I painted my race fairings between Xmas and New Year or thereabouts, when the weather was hot but not windy. Did it in my back yard, early in the morning, using compressor and spraygun borrowed from a friend. Had the same issues with water, and sorted this same as you.

Had fun trying to get even colour when I did the blue pearl effect, but putting clear over it has virtually "cleared" it up.

My biggest problem was getting paint runs when putting the Clear on. Found it very hard to see how much paint was on the surface - slightly too little and you get the orange peel effect, slightly too much and it starts to run. I used Metalux 2 Clearcoat 100:50 hardener:10 thinners. Any suggestions?

[Swoop]

My biggest problem was getting paint runs when putting the Clear on. Found it very hard to see how much paint was on the surface - slightly too little and you get the orange peel effect, slightly too much and it starts to run.

You only want to put enough "product" (paint/clear coat/etc) on the surface so that it looks like the surface of a calm pond. Wet, but not TOO wet, if you get my drift!

Practice + more practice...

[NinjaNanna]

Hi Leong

Looks like you suceeded a bit better than me. All of my fairings were painted lying flat so I guess that helped to reduce the risk of running.

If its any help my clear coat was the same 2:1 +10% so I guess we both got good instruction from our respective paint shops. Though my paint shop did say that I could chose anywhere between 5%-10% thinner so I guess you could try reducing the amount of thinner?

Cheers

Shane

Hey NinjaNanna - Well done for posting your pics for the benefit in the interests of education. I'm sure this thread will be a good resource for KB'ers in the future.

My first time too - I painted my race fairings between Xmas and New Year or thereabouts, when the weather was hot but not windy. Did it in my back yard, early in the morning, using compressor and spraygun borrowed from a friend. Had the same issues with water, and sorted this same as you.

Had fun trying to get even colour when I did the blue pearl effect, but putting clear over it has virtually "cleared" it up.

My biggest problem was getting paint runs when putting the Clear on. Found it very hard to see how much paint was on the surface - slightly too little and you get the orange peel effect, slightly too much and it starts to run. I used Metalux 2 Clearcoat 100:50 hardener:10 thinners. Any suggestions?

[lowflyinggt]

from my limited knowledge id agree that the fish eyes wud be caused from air bourne silicons, probably from the compressor. A water trap and air filter will fix that.
Having the parts hanging verically will help stop dust settling on them. Also ground metal parts so that there is no static electricity attracting dust. Use lots of prepsol, etc (i used thinners) with clean rags. Most of the dust that ends up in your paint job was already there b4 paint, tack wipes are awesome for preping the parts seconds before paint goes on. Theres a load of info on the net, but beware of people giving advice as some of it is incorrect despite there best intensions.
I gave my tank a quick half arse coat of clear to start with, having being told it would help stop the clear from running. However it just made for a nice orange peel ripple effect that i never lost after multiple coats. I later read that this is not recommended for the above reason, damit.....
Painting is 90% prep work to get a good finnish. Gud luck with ya next project