PN# TY26268 (Buff Primer Sealer)
PN# TY25631 (Blitz Black Paint)


After reading a couple of other threads in this forum, I decided to go with John Deer’s ‘Blitz Black’ as my best option for a successful paint match for my 2007 Night Train. I recently upsized my front wheel/tire to 21” x 3.5”: 120/70/21, so a new front fender was required. There is no direct bolt-on replacement fender for this setup, so after looking at my options, I purchased a Russ Wernimont (RWD) “Maverick” front fender in the raw and prepped it for the Blitz Black treatment. This is the condition the fender arrives in, with the factory welds roughly ground down and ready for detail treatment.





I started by grinding down the factory grinded welds with 320-grit sandpaper until I had as smooth a surface as possible. Then I used some 'Kombi Spot Putty' to fill a couple of weld pits and to smooth out a couple of ripples. All in all, the RWD fender was a very well made piece.




The fender arrived as a “blank”, so I had to properly locate the fender on the tire to determine where to drill my bolt holes. I saw on another thread where someone used this extension cord trick to provide the spacing between the tire and fender, so I followed that same process. Not pictured is a third cord wrap along the centerline of the tire, which was required to keep the top center of the fender lip from resting directly on the tire.





Once the fender was properly positioned, I measured the distance between the fender and the bolt housings on the forks and determined that a pair of ¾” spacers would be required. I only found one source for these (Motorway Engineering), and they fit perfectly.




I marked the bolt hole locations by gently removing the spacers so that nothing shifted, and passing a very thin paint brush through the bolt hole to mark the sweet spot. I then used a punch to mark the spot for drilling. A quick remount proved that the punch marks were perfect.





I then used a drill press to drill the holes, and then moved on to the painting process. There’s a YouTube video called “How to build a paint booth for less than $50”. I followed that idea, but mine cost about $100 since I chose to use larger PVC, etc. It was a quick and easy way to set up an effective spray environment without costing too much time or money. Once I had the materials, it took me about two hours to assemble the booth. It’s not much to look at, but it helped get the job done.





After the final sanding of the fender, I washed it with Dawn soap to remove any oil, grease, or fingerprint remnants, and then used a heat gun to dry any remaining water out of the weld seams, etc. I went over it with some tack cloth to remove any unseen particles, and then moved it into the paint booth. I started with three coats of the John Deer primer…






Followed by three coats of the Blitz Black paint…





I was amazed that I was able to get a finish of this quality out of a rattle can. People praise the little nozzle on these high end rattle cans, which are quite different from the nozzle you see on your average Krylon spray paint. This is what the nozzle design looks like…




I made sure to wipe the nozzle each time I finished applying a coat, and also during the application of a coat if I felt any paint was building up on the spray nozzle. I only had a couple of instances where the can “spit” a tiny drop onto the fender,and that was easily covered up by the next coat application.


The finished product was a damn near perfect match to the factory color, with the only real visible difference being an extremely slight variation in spray texture. I didn’t sand the finished product since I wasn’t sure how that might affect the finish. A good wipe down and some spray cleaner for denim paint, and here’s the final product. By the way, this was my first ever attempt at doing any kind of body work and paint. If you’re looking to match the black denim paint on your Night Train, then this product is going to be pretty damn hard to beat.

 

Looks professional. Nice job.

 

I'm diggin it, looks good bro!

 

Very Nice.

 

Nicely done, that paint booth is pretty sweet. Good home garage set up.

 

looks great..that jd blitz is a good product..used it many times on hot rod builds...it also blends nicely in case of a scrape/chip

 

Great job, thanks for sharing.

 

None of the pics are working :/

 

Built your own paint booth, whoa! Nice end product.

 

Cool wheels, nice set up!