Recommended Paint Tutorial?

[Akatombo]

The bike I purchased came with a cracked fairing with some roadrash. I've gone and repaired the plastic, welding the cracked pieces together, and filling in the scratches. Structurally, the fairing is nearly good as new.

The gas tank is developing cracks in the paint as well. I want to take care of this ASAP, before it starts rusting. I've covered the bare metal with a surface sealer / paint for the time being, but I'd like to properly take care of this.

Now, casual googling has not turned up anything particularly good concerning ABS plastic painting. Brands and types of primer / paint, clearcoat is important to make sure it sticks. Also, I'm a poor college student. Cost is important.

Also, since only sections of the fairing were damaged, I don't want to repaint the entire thing if possible. Can this be done? or should I just repaint the entire thing?

I'm looking at having the local paint shop mix me up a batch of paint, and spraying it myself. I've found refillable spray cans that can be loaded with paint, and can be pressurized with a bicycle pump. Seems cheap, compact, and reusable. Any opinions? I don't have the room to keep an air compressor and spray guns and stuff, and I don't want to use rattle can spray paints, for environmental reasons.

I'm going to go talk to the paint people and get detailed information, but I want to do my research.

Thanks!

[hitjohn]

the prep is the most important part and sanding. sand til its smooth, use gray primer on black plastic so you can see high spots, use a little filler if needed. prep it nice and take your time.

spraying it yourself is a good idea if you know you can do it well. otherwise its a futile effort and wasted money.

i do all my own bodywork except paint when i have plastics and parts to paint. i drop em off at miracle and they shoot it. i get it back and i pay them 150.00. end of story. if it does anything weird they do it again. lucky its always come out top notch for the money.

prepping the part is enough work, treat yourself to a less stressful way of painting after all the hard work you did prepping it, let someone shoot it for you: )

john

[Akatombo]

I've been doing the surface prep by feel. I've been feeling for the uneven bits with my fingertips, and filling the uneven parts in the surface with ABS cement. I've then sanded the surface with 220, 400, 600, 1500, then 2000 grit wet/dry sandpaper. The bare plastic is nearly perfect, shiny, and almost cool looking. Well, if you consider patches of shiny black plastic in the middle of red paint to be "cool".

So. Do I sand off all the paint? or can I paint the bare spots? Anyone have a suggestion for a primer? I'll go to the paintshop and go ask them about the refillable spray cans. I'm sure they'll have a good idea about the proper primer and paint combination. I'll report back with authorative information!

[milo2]

Here are a couple links that may help. The first is on body and primer work and the second on blending/painting a third is for plastic welding .. Even though the first is on a car... the steps are the same ..using a 2 part epoxy primer as not to get bad reactions with mystery paint

bodywork.. http://www.a2zautoforums.com/showthread.php?t=936&page=1&pp=20

paintwork... http://www.a2zautoforums.com/showthread.php?t=3782&page=1&pp=20

plastic welding http://www.a2zautoforums.com/showthread.php?t=1962

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