So my GF and I just finished shooting a fresh coat of paint on my bike on Sunday and I'm already having some problems with the clear coat. We did all the prep work including:
-Removing all decals and flush-sanding the ones on the tank that are under the clear coat
-Sanding original paint with 320 grit on all plastics
-Adhesion promoter applied to all surfaces followed shortly by application of a sandable primer
-Primer given about a week to fully cure (didn't have extra time anyways)
-Primer wet sanded with 500 grit and rinsed clean
-Bought jet black paint and clear coat from autozone (spray gun formula)
-All plastics were hung from a metal frame and paint gun was cleaned and adjusted to 45psi
-Several coats of black were applied, followed by several coats of clear (about 3 for both I think)

So the paint itself went on without any flaws. My GF is pretty good with a spray gun and there were only a few minor runs. The problem came up after I cleaned the gun out the second time and we put the clear in.

For some reason the clear coat just turned out like absolute ****. It went on looking sort of milky white and some parts dried that way. After waiting overnight for things to harden, I bought some polishing compound on Monday and worked on the plastics. I got excellent results using turtle wax polishing compound and now all the plastics look great with a smooth surface and good shine.


The problem I'm still having is the tank. It looks like garbage. I tried using polishing compound on it and I swear that it actually laughed at me. The surface has what looks like a bunch of little pits all over it and the clear coat dried up clear on the opposite side of the tank where it still had gas in it. The upper empty part of the tank dried out milky white. It's like the gas must have made the lower part of the tank cooler and thus the paint dried slower.

It also has a surface texture like a painted cinder block wall. Imagine if it were painted black and you would have my tank. You could say it looks like the surface of an orange, but I don't really think what I have going on is orange-peel. The paint and clear coat adhered quite well... It's just like textured or something.

Add to this and it had rained the day before we painted the bike and it was still kind of humid outside. We also found out that the paint was supposed to be sprayed at around 30-40psi instead of 45psi.

What the f**k happened to my tank? I attacked it with 2000 grit wet sanding last night and got rid of some of the pitting after another treatment of polishing compound but it looks like I've still got a good deal of wet sanding to do still.


Any ideas?

 

Just wet sand it all down and respray the clear... You probably went to heavy in spots.

 

What kind of water trap you running?

 

id have to say that watever u cleaned the gun out with was still in there and causin some trouble

 

the pinholes are from dust and dirt that got on the primer and sprayed over!make sure to wipe down the tank good before you spray!!!

 

That's probably what I'll do. I already went over all the plastics with polishing compound and it got rid of the milky discoloration.

When I got to the tank, polishing compound wasn't enough so I went over it with 2000 grit, which took too long. Switched to 1500, sanded as good as I could but unfortunately I started wearing through the clear coat in small spots, so I switched back to 2000 to quickly smooth out what the 1500 did without trying to take any more of the clear coat off. After that, I went over it with polishing compound to get back the smooth finish.

This went over pretty well. Most of the spots on the tank are gone now but of course I couldn't get everything. The paint still looks like a camp stove in certain places but whatever... I'll just have to sand it until everything smooths out and redo the clear coat on everything one of these days.

For the time being though, I think I might take one of the plastics off every day and wet sand it with 2000 to give it the extra tlc that it needs to look good.