I am starting the process of painting the fairings ( all except the rear sides ) on my Hurricane. If anyone is interested I will take pictures and make a small tutorial. This might benefit some of you as I have never painted anything automotive, but I have researched the process and it seems pretty straight forward. Let me know if you are interested.

 

i will be doing paint very soon. post away i will read :P

 

I'd love to see it. I just have a rattle-can job right now, should last another year or two, but I'd love to see how your home project goes.

 

sounds cool, lets see it!

 

yeah id like to see it i need to find some fairings first and then id like to paint them!

 

Finally Done!!!
I pimped my own ride and I am pretty happy with the results. I found a good tutorial written up by someone else, so I used that and coincidentally was using the same paint products.
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/2433233/...tics-with-out-
The base (color coat) was easy but the clearcoat was a bitch. Took a few tries to get it right. The white inner upper pieces were a tricoat. White basecoat, pearl/luminescent 2nd coat and then clearcoat. After all was painted, getting the pieces to fit back on was difficult. Has anyone else had problems getting fairing pieces to line up and fit together right? I still haven't been able to get the lower fairings to meet under the engine. There is an inch or so gap. I'm thinking that so much time has passed with the pieces off the bike that they deform somewhat. Had to get creative with the inspection panel covers. Anyway, I'm glad it's done so I can go riding now! Have a good summer riding season all!
Bill

 

Not bad!
For a self proclalimed noob at painting it came out pretty nice.
I do a lot of painting on Jet Skis (really similar to the bodywork on bikes) and have a few little tricks I use to keep things simple. You said you struggled with the clear? Many painters I know use the term... "no sag, no shine". Im not sure exactly what issues you ran into, but getting runs in the clear is no big deal. Almost everything I paint gets color sanded and buffed which gets rid of any runs. Painting small intricate parts with lots of angles and edges can be tough.

Once again... Looks nice!

 

yeah everytime i have painted a bike it is a little hard to line the fairings up again. looks like you did a good job what issues did you have with the clear?

 

There are a few runs in the clear. My understanding is that I could lightly wet sand the runs down and then use rubbing compound to restore the shine. Tried it in the tail piece and the shine never came back. That was supposed to be the " cut and polish " part. I decided not to do it on any of the other pieces as I didn't want to ruin them. There was a big learning curve with paint gun setup and so forth but for a noob paint job I am satisfied. I clearcoated the little black pieces up by the windscreen... they look like glass now.

 

Colorsanding is kind of an art in its self. Just like painting it takes practice to learn how to do it best. I use 1500 grit wet dry paper and sand lightly with water, then use a slow speed buffer (NOT grinder) with a wool pad and cutting compound then shine it with a foam pad and swirl remover. My work comes out like glass. I know its not a bike, but here is a pic of a paint job I did on a jet ski and you can see the reflection of the owners face in the shine...


You can get the same results with the proper materials and tools. My buffer is a slow speed DeWalt and I use it at about 1500 RPMs. Using a grinder or anything that turns much faster will make it really easy to burn the clear coat or paint. If you were close enough I would show you now to do this kind of work...