I am currently looking to paint my 1985 Ninja 600R and im not looking to spend alot of $$$ on doing so. I decided to test out the painting that I wanna do so I removed one of my side panels to test on. So here is what I did, I flipped the panel over to paint the back of it so if I messed it up (expected to) it would be hidden, I then sanded a 8" x 8" location and cleaned it throughly. I then applied a coat of rustulem spray can automotive grey primer, waited 15m and coated another layer and let dry for another 15m mean while I used a space heater (approx 3 feet away) to dry the paint. I then applied a coat of rustoleum bronze color spray can paint and waited 15m and repeated 2 more times. Then I applied a coat of rustoleum clear coat high gloss spray paint and let dry for 15m and then repeated again. It looks really good and feels great and I let it rest for about 18hrs and I pushed my finger nail on it and I can dig the paint off. Is there something I can do so this doesn't happen like letting it cure for a certain time or letting it rest more in between coats besides having it professionally done? Thank you.

 

I am definitely no expert on this, but at what temperatures was the paint cured at? and what did you clean the oils off of the sanded section with? and with what I know on painting, generally a scuffing of the primer and between layers helps in the bonding process.

 

The paint was cured at around 85 deg F. Ive been researching it a bit and found out what u just mentioned that using like a real fine sand paper in between primer to base coat and base coat to gloss finish coat. I'm gonna give this one a whirl and I'll give feed back to my success / failure lol.

 

Oh, and I'm gonna give each coat 1 to 2 days in between for added measure.

 

Just my two cents. Some paints have a solvent (xylene, toulene) in them which react with the plastic and leave the finish "soft." Double check your application specs.

 

Here are the steps that I did to spray can (rattle can) paint my bike. I removed all the panels, fenders, and gas tank. I then removed all the hardware on the removed parts (ex. turn markers, gas flap). Note: when dismantling the gas flap, my gas flap had 7 baby springs and 2 ball bearings in it, so watch out. Next step I repaired the cracks using fiberglass resin on the back side of the damaged panels and bondo on the front side of the panels. I then sanded the entire exposed surface of the panels and such using 60 grit sand paper. I followed up using 320 grit, smoothing out the damaged areas as well. Next step I cleaned off all of the parts using clean water with a couple drops of sink dish detergent in it to get all the fingerprint grease and dust off the paintable parts. I then sprayed a coat of rustoleum auto primer (gray) on the exposed parts, waited 30 min and repeated another coat of primer. I waited 2 days and then applied the first coat of base coat. I used oil rubbed bronze (spray can) by rustoleum. I waited 30 min and repeated another coat of base coat. I repeated for a total of 3 coats. I then waited 2 days and applied the first coat of clear gloss (spray can) rustoleum enamel. Again, I waited 30 min and repeated another coat of clear coat another 4 times. I then waited 2 days till I placed the hardware back on the panels, fenders, and tank. I then put the bike back together carefully. The paint takes several weeks to cure and setup. So far it looks sharp. If you happen to scuff up the surface, just lightly wet sand the location using 1500 grit sand paper and re-apply the clear coat.

 

any pictures of the finished bike. would like to see what it looks like after all of that hard work.

 

indeed, show and tell involves two things. We need pics!

 

I will Definitly show some pictures as soon as I can figure out how too. I'm not exactly good w computers lol

 

I usually buy the good paint like dupont or spies and hecker and use a flex additive. I've painted my first bike and it turned out really good. It was an 01 6r and I used the zx12r candy lime green. Man thats a sweet color! I'd love to paint my car that color.