Hi all, Last year we bought a house with a garage again, and I happily started working on my two bikes again. I’m not super competent but happy to learn. Below are some of my in progress painting projects. I’m not quite ready to move to spray guns just yet, seeing how good I can get with rattle cans first. I have some tailpiece decals to add still.. Have enough fairing panels to practice on; what I’d really like is a bad front mudguard - anyone got one with lots of paint damage, or partially cracked, please?
It was my birthday yesterday. A requested DA12 orbital polisher arrived. Tried it on one of my spare tail pieces as follows.
Now onto sanding (which to be fair to the machine, isn’t what it’s supposed to be for). 320 grit is way too hard. it does clog the grit quickly, but being wet and dry, can be washed clean.
Onto 3M 3000 grit. This is supposed to be a clear coat roughing grit, and actually does a sanding job nicely, though takes ages to get through to undercoat. What’s nice about it is it has a small cushion which gets round the curved surfaces better.
Clogs up as before but washes mostly out. Conclusions so far: Yes the orbital polisher works, yes it’s much quicker than hand sanding, but grit strength is crucial. I’m just a beginner with the machine so go easy on criticism! More updates (and some real painting) when I’m happy with the prep.
Today’s task - preparation of another tail panel, by hand this time. Looks OK, this one, with no apparent damage. Hand sanding reveals its history in some detail.
Obviously some paint scratches, but hand sanding with an (excellent) 20mm block and 400 grit wet and dry takes it back but shows that it’s already had a repaint. Under the 1st layer of paint is the grey primer (wrong), under that the original paint then white primer (original and correct). Go too far and you hit SRM, or whatever the fibreglass compound is called.
Finishing off with 800 grit, just to make sure it’s a good finish, and I take gloves off to feel for irregularities. I find a couple. First is a couple of small indentations which wouldn’t really show, and one of the corners is separating.
Gloves back on, and I decide to mix up some epoxy, which I fill into the gap. Time to stop while it cures. If it doesn’t stick, I have an alternative - araldite.
More minor repairs on a different tail panel. This one has a combination of issues - worn down areas and three cracks. I drilled holes using the smallest drill I could find, to stop the cracks spreading (possibly overkill as they are tiny), then cut grooves in preparation for glass fibre work. I then filled the low spots on the piece.
Yeah really interesting - like you, I'm a total novice but with healthy curiosity....my Carbon Collective (new model) nano polisher has just arrived this lunchtime. Have got and used random orbital and rotary polishers on cars, done some minor corrections on thingls like fibreglass Lotus panels in the dim-n-distant past, but both those machines are too big for the bikes, hence the investment. Need to get going on correcting the tanks, all quite dull with bike leathers abrading them....but I'm bloody nervous about the depth of paint on the tanks (panels don't worry me so much)....time to crack out the paint depth gauge and hope it's accurate!
Today I had a go for the first time at fibre glass repairs. It’s not hard, anyone could probably do it, just fiddly and time consuming.* I had a tail piece that had been repaired, badly. You may be able to see that it’s misaligned. What I guess I did was the equivalent of resetting a broken leg (though obviously without a doctors skill). * I’m probably being over enthusiastic, and it’ll fall apart as soon as I pick it up.
