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I finished many hours of primer sanding and today I started painting color coats. I like this silver paint. It looks just like metal.

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Wow, I thought that was a metal tube! What kind of paint is that?
 
Wow, I thought that was a metal tube! What kind of paint is that?

Restoration Shop Bright Silver Metallic lacquer from TPC Global. It will look better after several coats of clear, then wet sanded, and polished. First I still have two more colors to mask and spray on the lower section.
 
I'm making some more progress with painting. I had previously spray black on the booster section, only on the areas that will be black. Normally I would spray the light colors first but with this paint design it is much easier to do the black first. So last night I did the masking for the Cobra Blue Metallic. The first step is to mask the paint lines with 3M green precision masking tape.

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Then I complete the masking job with blue painter's tape and plastic cut from big trash bags.

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After spraying the Cobra Blue Metallic:

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After removing the masking:

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So far so good. Next step will be to mask for the next color which is Silver Blue Metallic.
 
This is the part of the thread where I stop following before I get paint envy.
 
Nathan,,
If I need any paint done on a car,,,
would you please do it for me,, lol...

Teddy
 
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I'm going to be really surprised if the pic upload worked...

Great choice of colors Nathan...

Teddy
 
Wow nice bike Teddy! I haven't seen that before, do you still have that?

In my younger days I put a total of over 60,000 miles on several motorcycles, all Hondas. And I still have a 1970 Honda CT70 Mini Trail which is THE SAME COLOR!
 
WHAT !!!!!
You have a 1970 Honda Trail 70 !!!!!!!!
There was a time I'd have sold a few body parts for that,, lol...
That was my drool over bike when I was proly about 10 or so...
Wow is that too funny...
Yeah,, I've had a lot of bikes over the years..
I still had the last 2 until that last round of chemo,, then I sold em...
Those were the baddest two ever though,, lol...
I've ridden a lot of bikes,, those last two were the coolest,, most fun bikes I ever rode...

Do you still ride Nathan ??

Teddy
 
I sold my 1983 Honda VF750 Sabre in 1988 and I haven't ridden since then.
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There were 2 others with that bike,,
a 98 XR 400...
The most fun bike you ever rode,, what a beast..
Tall as heck though..
And I bought a bike I've always thought a lot of
and finally got one for my wife and daughter to have fun with around town..
It was a Ninja 250,, 6 speed in line twin,, little light weight, disc brakes...
Super fun at low speeds,, I found you had to push it just to keep up with traffic...
On local blocks and streets the liter bike was always lugging in first..
The little Ninja was perfectly between 2nd and 3rd..
Constantly going up and down between while throwing the bike around...
Alota fun for sure..

Hey ya know the guns and rockets thread ??
There must be more of us that have an interest..
We should start a thread on riding,, lol...

Especially so we don't take over your thread Nathan,, lol..

Teddy
 
Any issues with coverage doing blue over black? I always shoot the light colors first, so just curious.

I usually spray the light colors first too but I have used Restoration Shop metallic lacquers before so I knew that they do a really good job of hiding the base coat. That's not aways the case with some other paints, which are very transparent. In any case, after 3 coats of the metallic blue you can't see any difference between the areas that had black underneath and areas that had just the gray primer.
 
Got the edges masked for the next color. There is a trick to getting perfectly straight tape lines. With small rockets I just eyeball it. What I did for the fin stripes here was measure and mark the locations of the ends of the stripes with small pieces of tape, then tape a metal yardstick to the fin and use that as a guide for applying the masking tape.

Next step is to tape on the plastic. Weather forecast looks like I should be able to do some painting in the garage again by the end of this week.

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Sprayed the Silver Blue Metallic color this morning.

Masked and ready to paint . . .
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After spraying Silver Blue Metallic . . .
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After removing the masking. This photo doesn't show the Silver Blue Metallic color very well. It looks more blue in real life than it does in this photo . . .
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Next step: mask for the silver stripes on the fins.
 
Nathan,,
Will you please do some tapered stripes like these on my truck for me ??

Teddy
 
Nathan,,
Will you please do some tapered stripes like these on my truck for me ??

Teddy

Ha, that would look cool!

The lacquer paints that I use on rockets are really not durable enough for cars. Long ago like before WWII all cars were painted with lacquer (although that was nitrocellulose lacquer not the acrylic lacquer available today). But now all car paint is catalyzed urethane enamel which is extremely durable but highly toxic to spray. I don't mess with that stuff.
 
I used to mess with that stuff...
Without proper protection...
I did the paintwork on my bike,,
(well, the second time it had to be done)...
You sure are right,,
that stuff is nothing to mess with...

Teddy
 
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