I am no professional painter but I do paint from time to time. I did a tourpak last summer using colorite and it came out really nice. I do not paint with spray cans, I have a gun.

What you call cracking I call a really wicked bad alligator hide orange peel. It could have been caused by the paint being too cold. The ambient temp in your spray booth might have been too cold as well. Cold paint is thicker than warm paint. On top of that, you might have sprayed it on too thick and not allowed the solvents to flash off between passes. When you paint over existing paint that is still wet, you can blow it around with subsequent blasts from the spray can, giving a "curdled" appearance. Thus the alligator hide. Some guys will soak a spray can in a bath of warm water for a bit before shooting, like how Grandma used to heat up a baby bottle full of milk.

I recommend bringing all your parts inside the house and giving them 2 weeks to completely cure and harden. Then sand it all back down to smooth and try again. This time, make sure your paint room is warm enough and you have enough paint. Make light passes and allow the paint to flash off after each pass.

So why did the first can work out and the others didn't? I have no idea. It could be the temperature issue I mentioned. It could also be the paint in the first can was just thinned out better. Sorry the people at colorite didn't treat you better. No excuse for it. Paint is expensive as hell and if you wreck a job, you start from scratch. I'm doing some painting right now using a 2 part epoxy. I'm having adhesion problems as the masking tape is pulling up the paint. You may have heard me cussing last weekend.

Good luck, and let us know how the rework turns out.


Carl

 

Carl,

Thank you for the feed back and help. Who know why the two turned out the way they did, but they did, so moving on.

I removed all the old paint, took the parts down to bare metal and started over. Resprayed this week and they turned out fine. I'm letting all the parts sit for a while before I wet sand and polish.

Thanks again,
George

 

Paint does not like cold weather

 

Did you wipe it with anything like a cleaning agent ?

 

Glad it all worked out. I had bought some lowers but chickened out on painting them. I just prepped them and had a buddy shoot them for me. It cost me a case of beer.

Did you have to buy new product or were you able to continue using what you had?

 

Glad the parts turned out fine.

carl

 

I just reread the thread, I see you just started over and redid the whole process with what you had. Glad it worked, I didn't think it was the product. Like others have said it could have been the prep or the time delay, why they weren't all affected, who knows

 

Thank you...

 

I was able to use what I had. Now comes the interest part. There's a tiny bit of orange peel. I've read you should wait a month for the paint to cure before wet sand and buff. Since I screwed up with the paint on some of the parts, I'll wait a month.

 

Glad to hear that you got the pieces done . About 3 years ago , I did my hard bags and side covers , then last year , I did my tour pack . I only waited about a week before I wet sanded and polished , then waited a couple weeks before I washed and waxed the entire bike , haven't had any issues with it at all . At the time I painted the parts , the temp was above 70* , so not bad for a good curing temp .

You must be doing your work in a heated shop now , so I'm guessing you must have time to let it cure before you can ride .

If you can wait it out a month before sanding and polishing , then great , but if your in a rush , I don't think it'll be an issue .