Colour and Artwork

It’s now Monday, May 22nd, and it’s primed. Only problem is, it’s appearing at the Chopperbuilder Forum’s first meeting, the BogSmashers Ball, on June 2nd, so I’ve got just 11 days to finish the bike. Luckily, between coats, there’s plenty I can get on with, and a rather shitty engine to make look nice.

So…away we go. The yellow-primed parts are now given a light satin black guide-coat, and wet flatted with 600 grit paper, tack-ragged down to remove all dust, and given two more much lighter coats. A quick dry rub-down with 600 again, and it’s colour time. Everything gets 4 coats of cellulose gloss red, and it gets left overnight to harden. Next morning, all the areas to receive artwork are masked off, and the Metalflake comes out of its bag.

For those that have never used it, Metalflake comes in a bag, as a flake, and is added to the clear laquer. I now switched to highly toxic “Two-Pack” clear, as it chemically hardens after adding an activator, allowing twice as many coats to be applied as normal. 6 coats were applied, and with each coat, the flake effect got deeper. A run at this stage would be a disaster, as the flakes would run too.

After a couple of hours to harden, the masking was removed extremely carefully, to reveal an unflaked base for the artwork, as I was again going back to cellulose, which reacts if it goes on top of 2-pack. I won’t go into the intricacies of the airbrushing, just suffice to say it took over 30 hours and was done in two days. Every panel and every pinstripe was individually masked. It nearly sent me mad. The actual design was based on the psychedelic seat cover from the original bike, and I wasn’t sure if it would work, but I think it did!!! The artwork continues under the seat and behind the electrics box, and you can only see parts of it if you’re on your knees, but it was worth the effort.

Once the airbrushing was done (I used a £23 gun I bought new off EBay just for this job, and it performed superbly), everything could receive the final coats of clear. This is the tricky bit. Metalflake is actually anodised aluminium particles, and after being applied, the paint finish is pretty lumpy to say the least. Several coats of laquer have to be applied over it and rubbed smooth with 1200 wet paper and soap. If you “flat” off too much laquer and hit the flake, the colour comes off and leaves silver patched. I put on six coats of clear. Once rubbed down, you’re left with a matt finish. Three more coats of clear on top, and the whole bike is transformed, with a finish like glass. Altogether, the paintjob was completed in just over 4 days, a total of @ 80 hours, so you can work out how much sleep I got. But at least I was in with a chance of getting to the Ball!

Did you count the coats? I made it 27, but some parts got more than that, mainly to use up any laquer left over in the gun, as it turns to jelly within a few hours.