Painting a bike at home

[Speed addicted]

I have a 1978 Honda CX500 that I bought as a project mainly for things like the DGR and other slow runs.
It looks ok from about 10ft but the paint on the plastics is a bit rough.
It was a cheap bike and I’m not keen on doing a full professional respray.
However I’ve seen that you can get 2k clear coat in spray cans which would be tougher than the usual rattle can spray jobs.

I’d probably use Upol paint for the primer and colour as they have a decent spray pattern, I take it you can mix normal paint and 2k without them reacting?

Is this likely to give a decent result? I’ve never used 2k before but I’m used to painting bits of bikes.

[disco!!!!]

This blog has a lot of good information about painting at home

https://jtccc.wordpress.com/projects-2/paint-spray...

[Speed addicted]

disco!!!! said:

This blog has a lot of good information about painting at home

https://jtccc.wordpress.com/projects-2/paint-spray...

Cheers, I’ll have a look

[Biker's Nemesis]

[Merch131]

Assuming your using 1K colour coats followed by 2K clear top coat, both in rattle cans, then the thing to remember is that you need to let the 1K paint 'gas' off' before applying the 2K. The 2K is impervious to the gasses given off by the 1K while it cures, which can lead to delamination and gas bubbles under the clear 2K. It takes a lot longer than you may expect for this gassing off to stop. I usually wait two or three weeks before spraying on the 2K.

BTW I found Spray max 2K clear the best I've used to date.

[Fat Albert]

I did the fairing on my FZ1 Retro mod at home using a Primer/colour/Lacquer 3 pack from WLW that seems a fairly good colour match for my bike:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/167057026862?var=466778...

I do have a compressor and spray gun, but for a relatively small piece and in the cold temps I decided to go rattle-can (I warmed the cans in warm water before use)

I bought some massive plastic sheets from B&M (£4 for 4, I used 1!) and created a spray booth on my workbench to minimise dust, etc



Judging by the other comments I probably didn't leave it long enough between colour and lacquer (A week) but I haven't suffered any ill-effects so far. It's not the shiniest of finishes but I probably need to give it a proper polish now it has hardened.

Excuse the fly splats!

[Speed addicted]

That’s certainly a better finish than I would find acceptable.

I hadn’t considered time for it to gas off so I’ll leave this to the end of the season.

Good shout on making a paint booth. I’ll be doing it in my bike shed so it’s probably best to keep dust out with a Dexter style room.