When I bought the bike and did the first initial tear down I had the exhaust heat shields, filter cover + trim plate, timing cover & headlight bezel powdered. All gloss black with the exception of the heat shields which I had powdered satin. The new black parts will tie in with those parts.
It kind of sounds like I'm going with a full black out theme, but that's not the case. I do like having some chrome parts offsetting the black. Really trying to get rid of all the grey wrinkle though. Absolutely horrible finish found on the Nightsters. Took me forever to find a cleaning strategy (even made a thread about it >>https://www.hdforums.com/forum/sport...lved-pics.html). Ill mention the high heat coating to my guy, see if he knows of the stuff. Last time my heat shields were starting to change colour closest to the motor.
Few pics of the bike when I brought it home, the first day tear down & coating on the filter cover for reference.
Really wish I could do my own powder coating. Looks like you know what you're doing, the green looks really nice on your bike. How big is your oven?
Here are some close ups that hopefully show how close the color matches the factory finish. It was very tough to photograph the colors side by side as black absorbs the light.
My oven is 3x3x3m which is really good for rims, tanks and fenders. I plan on building a larger one for bike frames.
Got them back from powder coating and its a good/bad situation.
Most parts are absolutely stunning. All satin pieces are perfect (rocker box tops, inspection covers etc.), and some of the gloss black pieces are perfect. The heat shields and a few small parts came out great. The larger engine covers have too much orange peel for me to mount and feel good about. Ill try wet sanding & polishing them. If I'm unable to do with success, I'll send them back to be redone. Because this was done from a "friend of a friend", Ill try my hand at fixing it first. Another problem I've noticed is that the rocker box top lower and upper section dont have enough of a difference to notice. The top portion is satin and the lower portion is gloss, but, it looks too monotonous. I will be stripping the lower part and will try to get it back to a shiny polished finish too offset the dark. Thought the gloss against satin would be enough.. I was wrong.
Other than that, Im happy to have the parts back and being able to move on.
S
Damn, orange peel sucks. I think you will need to strip and redo. Buffing the the surface will not make it smooth like glass. My guess is, the powder coat was too thin when applied (or way too much). I have orange peeled my fair share of parts. Almost always due to a thin application.
It looks like they also powder coated the inside of your rocker boxes. Make sure you get a good deal otherwise you may get leaks.
Regarless, get the bike back together. Summer is here.
Damn, orange peel sucks. I think you will need to strip and redo. Buffing the the surface will not make it smooth like glass. My guess is, the powder coat was too thin when applied (or way too much). I have orange peeled my fair share of parts. Almost always due to a thin application.
It looks like they also powder coated the inside of your rocker boxes. Make sure you get a good deal otherwise you may get leaks.
Regarless, get the bike back together. Summer is here.
That was part of my worry sending them away. Regardless, they'll be stripped naked again in no time. I dont have experience powder coating myself but do have experience with paint and paint correction. I'm pretty confident I can make them show worthy.
See orange peeled parts . Most parts came back flawless, with the exception of the larger engine covers. Spent on the rainy Saturday afternoon showing the bad parts some tlc.
In person, the parts didnt look "quite" as bad as they look in the pics, but, were still not acceptable by a long shot.
Started off with a 600 Grit to sand down the rough high spots. Moved on to a 1000, 1500 and finally 2000 grit.
Used a 8" electric polisher with Meguires Ultimate rubbing compound to start bringing back the shine. Ive done 2 passes on the parts and thats where its sitting currently. I will give the parts one more pass with the compound and then a wax coat to really make them brilliant.
In the last pic, you can see the difference of the clutch cover (still orange peeled) vs the cam cover (polished).
Looks oke now but I hope you get a discount, I would not accepted it like that. Normally a pro powder lacquer must know that aluminum must be preheated
in the oven. I am not saying that this is the problem, but they often do not do the preheating and you get bad results.
Looks oke now but I hope you get a discount, I would not accepted it like that. Normally a pro powder lacquer must know that aluminum must be preheated
in the oven. I am not saying that this is the problem, but they often do not do the preheating and you get bad results.
Congratulations on your polishing work !
This may be the case, I don’t know. I’ve had all my past powder coating done from the same guy and all came out perfect.
I mentioned in my last post that he is a “friend of a friend”. I didn’t pay anything monetary wise which is why I opted to fix myself. That said, we kind of have a favour train thing going. I’ve given him plenty of work, as well as my friend whom I get to do all my welding and structural work at work.
Originally Posted by ahappydude
Waiting to see what it looks like on the bike!!!
Can’t wait. Only thing I’m dreading is screwing up the cams. One tooth off and it’s back to tear down mode.
05-10-2019, 04:27 PM
. Most parts came back flawless, with the exception of the larger engine covers. Spent on the rainy Saturday afternoon showing the bad parts some tlc.
