The budget paint job...how to paint your bike without spraying it
My savage was badly in need of some new paint. I found some good articles about doing it using rattle cans, so I had planned to do it that way. However, while doing research on the spray paint techniques I ran into a post on a site on how a guy painted his cars using a roller. Yes, I said a roller. And guess what...I looked FANTASTIC. He explained that he used Tremclad, a Canadian version of Rustoleum, and thinned it with mineral spirits. Then rolled it on with a high density foam roller. He said that it cost only $50 to do a whole car, and it looked just as good as most sprayed jobs.
This sounded right up my alley, being that I cannot spray paint worth a darn. SO, I picked up some paint ($8 for a quart of Glossy Forest Green Rustoleum) and the supplies necessary (about $25), did some practice to figure out what I needed to do, then started painting the bike yesterday. You cannot believe how much easier to do than spraying, and it's less messy. You put the paint on pretty lightly and it self levels itself. And the results so far are great. Much better than I could do spraying, and better than paying $300-500 for the same results at a cheap paint shop. It is basically a single stage enamel paint job. It's not a base coat/clear coat like the factory paint. But the advantage is that it's very easy to do, and very easy to repair nicks/scratches with touchups. The paint is much harder than normal auto paint as well.
Here is the first forum I hit searching:
http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/showthread.php?t=476749And here's the original post from another website:
http://board.moparts.org/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=2331682&page=0&...If you are interested in this, please read the 2 links above before you start asking questions on this thread. Some of you have probably already heard about this. Actually, some of you probably already have done this on other things, not just m/c's (or cars). It's actually not a new idea, it's just that the newer paint and rollers make the results just that much better.
Here's a pic of my paint so far. This is after 3 coats. (actually looks better in person than in pic). I really like the color. It doesn't look like everyone else's bike.
Here is the materials for those interested.
I have 3 more coats to put on. One more tonight before I go to bed. Wet sand with 1000 grit tomorow evening and another coat. Another coat Tues night. Then l will wet sand with 2000 grit, and polish to a shine later on in the week.
I'll post more pics Tues and the final results. I'm thinking about doing an accent on the side to the tank in a sand color, but that's still in up in the air.
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