I've finally decided to paint my Track fairings and tail unit as I've been quoted £500-650 around Oxford to do the whole bike which seems alot when the fairings were only £220 and its only a track bike! Does anyone have any advice on painting new gel coated fairings? Any particular prep, primer, top coat or lacquers to use or avoid? I will be rattle canning so I'm prepared for plenty of rubbing down but not looking for perfection as its only a track bike just a decent robust finish. Thanks in advance, Peggy
If they're gel coated why not just polish them up and fit decals? £500-£600 is a lot of tyres and trackdays wasted just trying to make it 'look pretty'.
Only becuase I'm a bit of a tart and want them to match my tank and mudguard, agree £500 is way to much, but happy to spend a bit on a few rattle cans to make it look half decent.
OK Mr tart. As they are grp give them a rub down and wipe with isopropyl or panel wipe and spray them with some etch primer. Then either go with a paint or another base primer as etch isn't always the nicest of colours. Etch prime will give the paint something to key to as grp has a habit of shedding paint easily. Then you can paint as usual.
I'd check you can get a colour in cans that match your tank first. Cans are expensive you'll need base coat and lacquer plus your primer. Rub the gel coat down with 320 grit sanding discs the clean and prime keep things very clean, with no grease or wax going anywhere near what your painting. Rub the primer down with p800 wet or p500 discs dry. Clean again with water base degreaser if you can get it as it causes less static or some water with a dash of washing up liquid dry it off then use a tack cloth to wipe over the parts your painting. I'd try the smallest part first to check your happy with the result cos if your not and do it all and decide to have it done at a Bodyshop they may charge you more as cans aren't always great to over paint
Basically colour impregnated fibre-glass. Some manufacturer's do a decent finish that with a little polish up come up really nicely. Then add some decals and job done. Another bonus is that if you do scuff em up, they're the same colour all the way through, not white underneath like painted fibre-glass so easy to tidy up. Here's mine. Looks good enough from the other side of the fence and in pics. That's all it has to do. I'm not wasting two entry fees on some fancy paint that'll only end up in the gravel trap at some point
As Bob says I have used these colour inpregnated ones on my old zx7r when they came they were awful with join lines and rough edges everywhere but spent a while sanding and polishing and they looked quite good. They are ok if they do a colour you want but don't think they do metallic colours
Cheers gents, just want I wanted, not too worried about a perfect finish and colour match just want them all the same colour and robust so it doesn't flake off, as TDB says only have to look good from the side of the track!
Where you rattling the cans? I found it took ages to dry and rub down each coat because I hadn't got a space large enough to either spray or dry them in. And I used 2000 wet/dry grit to rub each layer (much to hubby's amusement, who is panel beater sprayer by trade)...because found anything coarser took layers off as I don't think it was fully cured and sticking effectively...Have you got a compressor and gun to use because they don't splatter so much like cans? If you have some transparent film (ie I use my airbrush film) then you can mask off areas better than by using crappy sticky masking tape and newspaper which will give you a shocking edge. Defo don't buy Halfords paint, it was proper sh*tey and colour doesn't match. If you can buy cellulose rather than acrylic you'll do a better job. I am a rank amateur at this, but it still came out ok, took a lot of t cut to polish tho.
Thanks Emma-Lou, my regulator is buggered on my compressor but sounds like I might need to get it fixed as a few people have said it'll be easier with a proper spray gun on a compressor. I was planning on using a section of my garage and using plastic sheet keep the dust at bay, its an integral garage so pretty warm and can be heated. All sounds like lots of effort! Might be a winter project and I'll run them how they are for now.
