No I don't have a booth. I turn one of the garage bays into a make shift booth. I use plastic on the wall's and use 2" thick pleated air filters in the one door way and exhaust out the main door. I use a fan on the floor to try and draw down any dirt and not lift it from the floor. Kinda a down draft system I guess. If your spraying base coats, dirt isn't much of a problem. The base coats dry real fast and anything you get in them you can sand out in a half to 3/4 of hour. The clear I treat like I am spraying enamel. Try to get things as clean as possible, and one trick is to spray some of the clear coat in the air. Fog the room down once before spraying your parts. And just as you get ready too shoot them, pull back on your paint gun trigger just enough you release air only and give the parts a quick blow down. But the one thing is because your using an activator in the clear, it is more of a chemical reaction than evaporative drying. Both have there parts, but think of the clear like 2 part epoxy rather than paint. If you get anything in the clear coat its no big deal, after a day or two, just sand it out with 1000 grit or higher and rub it clear again. Never thought about spraying others parts,,,, have to give that a think over. Would have to put up a disclaimer,, I am not a professional.
Well It is an enamel. Guess, I worded it badly, sorry about that. But its urethane enamel. Unlike the enamel's of color, where its evaporative drying and takes days and even weeks to become fully harden. The modern urethane's use an activator or catalyst to harden quickly. The clear is the only part that sprays, or has the consistency of the enamel that most are familiar with. The base coats spray closer to "dry " lacquer. The entire color system IS urethane enamel. I just think of it as 2 different types of paint due to the way they spray. Sorry about the descriptions, only way I can describe how the layers go on. I hope this helps,,, Did not mean to confuse any one. I do that to my self as it is.
I have added 3 more pictures. One more Barn fresh, one of the painted frame, but the most important one is of the pieces before the white, but most of all before the clear coat. Just so you can see the change in the color tone.
Tecdiver70 wrote:
Never thought about spraying others parts,,,, have to give that a think over. Would have to put up a disclaimer,, I am not a professional.
You may not be a professional Tecdiver70, but you are certainly a very competent amature
Thanks for the detailed write up, knowledge like that shouldn't be lost. Has quite given me the idea that I should have a go at spraying a 2nd set of body work up in T500M colours.
I am supposing that the paint from the 70s would have had all the good old stuff in it such as "lead" to make it durable.
However, being the sun is more powerful than most chemicals in destroying them with its wavelength forms, the paint has basically lost its pigment to fading, from the pic you supplied.
To be truthful the factory paint was very minimal in application and not the best quality work either, so unless its a trailer queen or in a museum for the 100% concours look, having a professional modern repaint is the best way to go.
The most important thing is to get the match of shade correct for your bike, well even this is doubtful 100% too, as shades did vary within production runs, so if you have a section of paintwork thats been hidden, go for that shade.
You are correct on the activator, it is only in the clear coat. As for the gun I use, I have a siphon type Sharpe. I run about 90 psi off of the compressor but I have a regulator on the bottom of my gun. I generally run between 20 to 30 psi. If I am trying to hit small areas I use lower pressure but a narrow spray pattern. The larger surface areas like the tank sides and the side covers I use higher pressure with a wider spray pattern. Really the only time I use the narrow pattern is to get a good coverage of paint in small places, like around the fuel fill hole. That is a pain to get the paint every ware and not to run it. And yes lacquers are easier to use at times, but I have found for metallic colors the only way to go is base coat clear coat systems. The problem of metallic colors in lacquers and standard enamels is that you not only have to keep the paint nice and evenly coated, but you have to keep the metallic flake suspended in the paint evenly as well. One trick I used in the past was to throw 3 or 4 clean nuts in my paint can on my gun and shake it often while spraying. But the big problems come if the coat is to heavy yes it could run but worse is if the metallic flakes come out of suspension. They draw together and you have a lot of flake in one spot and nice clear paint around it. With the base coat systems, your colors dry very fast between coats, within minutes. The flakes stay were they belong. It’s the clear that goes on the heaviest to give you your depth and shine.
For paint a number of folks here do their own work.. I've found a good guy at the local Maaco shop. You might also want to consider joining a local a Vintage bike club or ask around at your local cycle shops to see who they recommend for doing paint work on older bikes.
