I bought a 2000 Honda Cbr 600 F4 black and orange paint scheme at the end of last summer. Previous owner had laid the bike down once. I changed the front fender from orange to black. Recently, I just repaired the cracks in the upper cowl and tried repainting it the OEM "mandarine Orange" (from colorRite). The paint doesn't match up at all. I am now considering painting the upper cowl black and possibly trying to stripe in some black on each side fairing to blend it in? Lemme know what ya guys think!???
Thanks.

 

First off... Welcome to the Forum! :-)

The trouble w/ older bikes is that the color has faded, especially if it was an 'outdoor' bike. So, getting new paint to match old paint can sometime be a problem.

Another example... My F4 is Sunrise Yellow. The tank is still true color, as well as the front fairing. However, the side fairing *stickers/decals* no longer really match. Those decals have faded/bleached a bit from sun & age. Its not bad but up close you can tell.

The only paint color that I've seen from the F4 & F4i models that stays true is the Accurate Silver Metallic (i.e. 'Honda Silver').

Question... How did you prep the paint surface b/f painting?

 

After repairing a coupl cracks I wet sanded with 600 grit and then did 2 coats of primer before doing any color coats... I bought all the paint supplies from colorRite

 

Ouch. I know that was expensive. Colorrite is good stuff tho to be sure. Do you have any pics of the finished product?...perhaps in the sun?

 

I put a picture up on my profile

I set the best picture i have as my prof pic... its not as obvious in a pic but the color difference is really noticeable in person (new paint is darker almost rusty compared to OEM)

I'm not sure what to do ?

 

Post a large pic up here in the thread when you can. Would like to see it.

 

 

Tiny pic. ;-) However, I can still see what you mean. Was the primer dark? Was the paint thin?

 

ha yea i know sorry, photobucket keeps re-sizing all my pics...
the primer was light to medium grey and the paint just seemed to be the wrong shade... it didn't look thin but i'm no paint expert either lol

 

here are my options I'm choosing from....

1) send out a sample to colorrite so they can try and match the paint exactly (will take at least 2 weeks bc i live on east coast and shipping to cali takes a week one way)

2) paint the upper cowl black bc i already changed the front fender to black (I'm iffy on how this will look tho)