Harry Palmer

Canned Heat live at Woodstock 1969.

I painted my GP cut down last weekend. This was the first time I’ve used a spray gun, compressor and professional paint.

I bought 2 pack paint from Julien on the Lambretta Club of Belgium forum, 75 euro for 1 liter of paint, 1 liter of clear coat, 500ml of thinners and 500ml of hardener which is almost enough for two coats of each. Expect some wastage in the paint and clear coat, if in doubt buy more hardener as this is what runs out first. To choose a colour simply find a car you like and get the paint code from the internet. I saw a petrol blue on a Renault Clio Sport which is slightly metallic and pearlescent. If you’re going for original colours then you can find the codes on the LCGB site. http://www.lcgb.co.uk/workshop/colour.html

My compressor was a medium sized model from Makro, approx 120 euro fitted with automatic pump, pressure gauges and two outlets.
Spray gun was also from Makro, 45 euro. It’s a “car touch up” gun which means it probably can’t deliver enough paint to spray the large areas of a whole car but seems fine for a scooter.

I spent a few weeks gathering the following materials before starting

Preparation of parts, it took me a long time to strip everything by hand (consider sand or bead blasting everything if you can find somebody to do it). I used normal cellulose primer and primer filler on the frame to fill some of the pits and scratches. Be careful to use primer of the same colour on all parts. My frame and forks were yellow and the rest grey, you can see a difference through the paint. Even so this amount of prep was not really good enough and small runs in the filler show through the paint, places where I had not filled or filled too much also showed through. The prep of the primer is key to a good finish.

I hung the big sheets in the garage, pinning them to the rafters to create a square room. Then laid the newspaper on the floor. I strung the smaller parts across this space, hanging each one from a wire using the butchers hooks and then hung the frame from a rafter. The forks were clamped in a workmate so that they could be rotated during painting. The spray gun pushes out a lot of paint, much more than an aerosol can so there is a lot of mist in the air (keep your brother in laws Ducati well away!). The 2 pack appears to be thicker than cellulose from a can so I saw fewer runs compared to other small jobs I’ve done. I did the first coat of paint quite lightly to get a feel for the gun, after a while I pulled the trigger all the way to put on a thicker coat.

I mixed the paint with the following ratio :-

Thanks to Julien for including this with the paint. I used 300ml of paint or clear coat + 150ml of hardener + 30ml of thinners. Which gives more or less half a litre of paint each time and means you can use half litre mixing jugs (and if you have to stop for whatever reason you only loose half a litre).
Same mixture for the clear coat. I applied two coats of paint (2 x the mixture above), then waited an hour, cleaned out the spray gun with cellulose thinners before applying two coats of clear coat. Here I ran out of hardener so had to mix less on the final coat.

Lessons learnt

Prep of primer is key to a good finish (PPPPPP – Proper Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance)
Good lighting is essential, some places got only one coat of paint as I just couldn’t see very well.
The warmer the environment the quicker the paint will set. I painted in an unheated garage at 5 to 8 degrees and after 24 hours the surface was dry to the touch but you could still scrape it off with your finger nail. I brought all parts indoors to dry in the warm house. It seems 2 pack can take up to a week to fully harden.
The finish looks good but when you look closer you can see runs and pits. Take time to to prepare the surface before painting and find a good well lit, warm place to do it.

Next steps will be to try and rub out some of the drips and runs with fine wet and dry paper once it has fully hardened.

There are some good “amateur” guides to painting with 2 Pack here :-

http://freespace.virgin.net/tommy.sandham/twopack.htm

http://www.renault4.co.uk/gordini-primer.htm

Here are some before and after pictures, it’s really hard to get a good close up view. The colour looks dark green indoors but comes alive in direct sunlight.