Fuel tank painting

[voodoo]

Well as winter seems to nearly be here and the wind is blowing a gale I thought I would make a start on the repainting of my Fuel tank off my Z...Here are initial pic's of how the tank looks now.....I will add each stage of the repaint and how it was achieved all the way through to it fitted back on the chop......Voodoo....

[Clive]

Woo hoo! Another re-paint thread!!

Looking forward to this buddy!

Clive

[VALLEYSBOY]

yea 2nd that

[gazzagood]

can't wait wooopy....

[bitzman5]

A master at work bring it on

[voodoo]

Heres the next stage..
As I am going to be useing the existing paint as a base coat instead of having to prime the tank first here is how I do it.....
First off I flat the tank off with 400 Grit to cut back the lacquer...Then move up to 800 grit to get it a smooth as it gets finish....Remember to keep the paper nice and wet or it will clog up...I use a bucket full of warm soapy water and just keep dipping in the paper...then I use a sponge to wash the panel every few mins...

[voodoo]

Next stage Wash the tank down (I use warm water with a squirt o washing up liquid for this)and dry it...Then use Panel wipe to remove any contaminants,next use a tak rag to get off any dust or bits of fluff(try and use cotton lint free cloths or you will get bits on tank) off of the panel, Main thing to do is make sure your preparation is as good as you can get it or you wont get a good finish....Voodoo.....

[Manky Monkey]

Ooh! Attacking that shiny paint with sandpaper must be a bit daunting!

[voodoo]

Next stage is to give it a dust coat of paint...I use a Pearl black as its a great bascoat for Kandy...I gave the tank one dust coat In Pearl, leave it to flash off 10 mins then Give it a light coat of Pearl....leave another 10-15 mins depending on flash time of paint you are useing......Spray another wet coat of Pearl...I tend to do a 25% overlap @ half to 3/4 trigger pull for this.....

[voodoo]

Tank after 4 more coats of Pearl, ready for next stage...( everytime I use this pearl black I say "I will have to do a bike in that soon" lol) .Tomorrow I flat this base coat back and get on with the Marble.....Yep I always cringe when flatting out shiny stuff...Voodoo...

[Manky Monkey]

Can you explain what "Flashing Off" is VD?

[voodoo]

Ah sorry...yep flash time is how long the paint takes to dry off enough to add another coat of paint without it all running...Voodoo...

[Manky Monkey]

Right-o, thank you.
Carry on. 

[voodoo]

Next stage I sand the paint back with 1200 grit until it is as smooth as I can get it, basically if its still shiney then you aint flatted it back enough lol (yet again I prefer to wet sand as I find I get a better finish).....once happy with it I then apply a wet coat of Silver Marbleizer (I do this in 4 stages across the tank starting from lower left side of tank)...the trick is to not load the tank up too much with this or it will run and you will not get the desired Marble effect...I will mention that when doing this you have a choice of effects...either the normal marble or a tricky to achieve snakeskin effect...No I wont tell you how I get that effect its a secret lol...Once you have applied the first area of marbleizer (lower left) leave for 15-30 seconds then apply plastic cover sheet and pat down or rub to get desired effect...leave for a further 30-60 seconds and remove plastic....repeat this step for the rest of the tank......Leave to flash off...only takes 15-20 mins...Voodoo.....

[voodoo]

Here's the Marble...Sadly thats all for now until I get another compressor, my emergency compressor is ok to base coat and do the Marble but nowhere near good enough for top coat and lacquer.....HHMMMM as I cant do nowt for a bit I may stick on some ghost flames.....watch this space.......Sorry about poor pic size...................................Voodoo...........