You can't. The closest way us to get the motor factor to fill a can with 2 pack clear and have everything ready to paint a you will only have so long to work with it but you don't want to be breathing isocyanate in. You'll then want to flat and machine polish it. Single pack paints aren't durable enough. Find a small local independent body shop you'll be glad you did.
Yes you can! But as has been said, you need decent laquer. I ordered a two pack can off ebay where you push a pin in the bottom of the can to release the hardener and shake to mix. But it's nasty stuff if you breath in the gases, use a proper mask, not a dust mask from B&Q. I painted my tank in my workshop, making a booth from plastic dust sheets. Hoover tbe area as well, as dust WILL find your wet paint or laquer. My tank is better than the fairing and seat I had painted by a bodyshop. It takes time, but is worth it to know you did it yourself.
I should add that the picture above was before flatting back, I left it in the house for a week or so to fully harden.
Much cheaper overall to have proper spraying equipment and do it your self or pay someone to do the job. You have little control over many of the influencing factors that go to make a decent paint job. It's not impossible but there are better and easier ways.
I've seen that tank and I'm even more impressed Nick, I thought it was paintshop finish - top stuff! I suppose backing up what nick says, it all depends where you get your rattle cans from. If you've got them from halfords or a local factors then the short answer is no. The reason is because the cheaper paint is heavy on thinner and propellant. Which is why the laquer is water thin and won't give that beautiful deep gloss that a gun would. If you go to a specialist pain factor they will premix decent 2K paint for you as nick says. You won't have the control of a gun but you will be firing the same stuff through it. In the case of Ducati the richness is achieved by putting a white ground coat on first before the colour - its a three paint process. It is achievable. Prep the panel initially by rubbing down the panel and using a guide coat in place. Use a block or a DA sander (orbital and oscillating jobee) and don’t be tempted to use your hands apart from in radiuses or tight bits. On curved surfaces use the block at a 45 degree swipe rather than up and down and you'll find that you follow the curvature of the panel. The guide coat doesn’t have to be anything special. The commercial stuff looks like a powder puff with fine soot that you wipe on the panel but I’ve used good old cheap matt black spray. Dust the panel with it. What the guide coat does is allow you to see where the high and low spots are. When you have no more guide coat your panel is pretty much flat, and where you still have it, your panel is low and so needs a bit of filler work. Keep going till the panel surface is lovely and flat. Spray with a filler primer and repeat the above process. Two coats of primer and guide coat and flat back. This primer however shouldn’t be much work as you’ve already done all the donkey work with the filler primer (sometimes refered to as hi-build primer or 2:1) Once you have a nice smooth panel then you can begin the fun stuff! Degrease the panel thoroughly - Two coats of white first, let them flash off – 20 minutes or so, two coats of colour with 20 minutes flash off, then two coats of lacquer (clearcoat). The waiting and then application is sometimes referred to as a wet on wet, because you’re not letting the panel dry and then having to rub it down for the next coat. You’re giving the paint just enough time to skin over and let any volatiles and nasties vent off. Because the paint is all still ‘wet’ you achieve a chemical bond between each layer as opposed to a mechanical bond such as between the primers and the paint. Contrary to popular belief more coats of lacquer won’t make it more shiny, in fact it makes the tint darker if anything. Leave to dry – if air drying you’d be looking at overnight or bake. So now you have a lovely panel in what’s known as a ‘gun finish’ if you’re unlucky you’ll have heavy orange peeling. The motor industry has made a mint out of convincing people that orange peel means “lots of lacquer therefore good quality sir...”’. The next step is polish, but to achieve jaw dropping wow you do a full cut and polish, and depending on how far you want to go you is how the finish turns out. You want to look to do this sooner rather than later as when the clearcoat if fully hardened it’s a right bugger! Most manufacturers have a nice charge for what is essentially a cut and polish finish over the robot's gun and polish finish. Some finishers will go back to the ground coat, others rely on the panel telling them when the clearcoat is flat enough- it’s easy to see as you won’t get any shiny speckles. When I was working back on merc’s W199 platform (body technology systems protoyping) we did a four stage cut and polish. The lacquer was first rubbed back with a very fine abrasive such as trizac or abralon, starting at 2000g but then proceeding to 3000 and finally 5000. We then used a fine cutting compound like G10. (G3 equivalent was only really used if there was bad peel on the panel, but our painters were good enough never to really get a peel finish straight off the gun). We’d finish this with a very fine polish such as an anti hologram polish. Again you’re using a sponge mop on a rotary polisher. The trick with rotary polishers is nice a steady and don’t linger on one spot – you want to avoid heating the paint up so that it moves and burns, and then you basically bust through. Its common on proud corners and radii. Whack on your favourite wax (my favourite is Meguires No6 mould release wax - sweatin buckets old school stuff. Its carnuba and takes about three to six layers to achieve a nice finish but it lasts for ages and dries super hard. (when you saw the bike nick I’d machine cut and polished it and waxed it the night before). And there ya go.. bob’s your aunty’s live in lover. So... yes you can get a factory paint job with rattle cans, if you know what you’re doing and are willing to take your time. But like all things, the most important thing to remember is preparation is everything and be prepared to spend money – good paint and laquer isn’t cheap. And that’s before you start looking at the consumables such as cleaner. Nick’s paint booth is also spot on and you can spray the floor to keep dust down as well if its a concrete floor. If you’re doing it outside, make a tent out of those plastic dust sheets. enjoy
totally agree, and an occasional user /starter gun from SATA or Devilbiss won't cost the earth either.
You can't as you will never match the original orange peel on Ducati's, you just can't get it as deep as they do
Agree with what Nick said; finish with rattle can of 2k clear, it will add a deep tough finish. I always rattle can the base coat because it's cheap and there's no clean up and the 2k rattle can, although a bit more expensive give a great finish with no clean up.
It was a death trap, I wore out a few pairs of jeans and lost a few sets of eyebrows due to backfires.
Do the 'Donkey Work' Prep and priming as described in the post by Sev and then take the parts to a spray shop. It won't cost as much as you think if they don't have to do it.
Wow it never ceases to amaze me, the knowledge of the members on this forum! Thanks for all the replies to my question.
Hard work and elbow grease with rattles with lots of sanding with 1500 grit and farecla g3 compound!!! I tend to go for 2k gloss outta the can as finding a good rattle laquer is a nightmare imho
