Paint your wagon! Or rather a shiny frame the rattle can way

[Peachy!]

A couple of things I might add. Always wear vinyl or latex gloves fingerprints will leave oil and can affect the finish.
If you have an old cabinet, wood is fine with enough room in it to hang a frame use it as a drying room. Add a couple of 150 watt old school light bulbs and temps will reach a dry 130 degrees F (depending on the size of the cabinet) cutting your drying time in half.

Drying cabinets are a very good idea, nothing quite as disappointing as to open your workshop doors in the morning to find all your hard work ruined as the cold has “bloomed” the paint( flat matt patchy finish)

 

[allenh]

A couple of things I might add. Always wear vinyl or latex gloves fingerprints will leave oil and can affect the finish.
If you have an old cabinet, wood is fine with enough room in it to hang a frame use it as a drying room. Add a couple of 150 watt old school light bulbs and temps will reach a dry 130 degrees F (depending on the size of the cabinet) cutting your drying time in half.

Drying cabinets are a very good idea, nothing quite as disappointing as to open your workshop doors in the morning to find all your hard work ruined as the cold has “bloomed” the paint( flat matt patchy finish)

Yes if you have the means and the space they're always a good idea.

 

[allenh]

On to the question of blemishes after building becasue well, Mr impatient just couldn't wait and built it up, and then onto dealing with said blemish and the risk of overspray.

Built up bike below apart from waiting for some new brake blocks (it comes in a very respectable 10.4Kg built up) and can you spot the cause of a lot of high language yesterday when I found it?

 

[allenh]

Well spotted at the back yes some sort of mark on the forks. It looked like I touched it with my shirt or something after applying the last clear coat and just didn't see it and the picture above is after I'd found it and tried to polish it out, it didn't work obviously but it did get it ready for sorting out.

Ok how to deal with a small localised blemish like this well, flat it as locally as possible. (1st picture)

Mask lightly and loosely around the blemish and make sure you leave the edges of the tape flared up ragged and most definitely not pushed down hard, you want a very feathered edge so that you don't leave a hard edge with your paint. (2nd picture)

Right now cover as much as possible with masking paper (I know I'm using newspaper and I said not to but needs must and it will be on for no more than a few minutes) (3rd picture)

Apply your paint as locally as possible without actually just pointing the can at the desired area and pushing the nozzle down, you still need to move the can about to get a good application and finish. (4th picture)

Lastly, straight away remove all the masking (5th picture) this I will allow to dry and then polish out the minor high edges and then re clear coat the forks completely and for that I will remove them to do it.

 

[Stick Legs]

Lovely job and an excellent how to.

I am going to use this on my next project...

Thank you.

 

[Wileyone]

Regarding decals, I was wondering what the correct process is. Do you apply decals after the last colour coat and clear coat over all. Or clear coat everything and then apply decals?

 

[allenh]

Regarding decals, I was wondering what the correct process is. Do you apply decals after the last colour coat and clear coat over all. Or clear coat everything and then apply decals?

The clear coat is always the last coat over everything so when the final colour coat is dry you polish it and then apply the decals before finally applying your clear coat, that is also true if your final colour is a coloured lacquer, you still polish, apply the decals and then apply a clear lacquer on top.

 

[Wileyone]

Regarding decals, I was wondering what the correct process is. Do you apply decals after the last colour coat and clear coat over all. Or clear coat everything and then apply decals?

The clear coat is always last coat over everything so when the final colour coat is dry you polish it and then apply the decals before finally applying your clear coat, that is also true if your final colour is a coloured lacquer, you still polish, apply the decals and then apply a clear lacquer on top.

Is there any potential to damage the Decals while polishing out the clear coat? Would polishing out the clear before applying Decals be a better option? This is where I usually run into problems...

 

[Peachy!]

Regarding decals, I was wondering what the correct process is. Do you apply decals after the last colour coat and clear coat over all. Or clear coat everything and then apply decals?

The clear coat is always last coat over everything so when the final colour coat is dry you polish it and then apply the decals before finally applying your clear coat, that is also true if your final colour is a coloured lacquer, you still polish, apply the decals and then apply a clear lacquer on top.

Is there any potential to damage the Decals while polishing out the clear coat? Would polishing out the clear before applying Decals be a better option? This is where I usually run into problems...

Personaly, I would lay a clear coat down first, rub it down, apply the decals, then apply another coat of clear..

 

[allenh]

Regarding decals, I was wondering what the correct process is. Do you apply decals after the last colour coat and clear coat over all. Or clear coat everything and then apply decals?

The clear coat is always last coat over everything so when the final colour coat is dry you polish it and then apply the decals before finally applying your clear coat, that is also true if your final colour is a coloured lacquer, you still polish, apply the decals and then apply a clear lacquer on top.

Is there any potential to damage the Decals while polishing out the clear coat? Would polishing out the clear before applying Decals be a better option? This is where I usually run into problems...

As Peachy says you can put on one coat of clear, apply your decals and then apply another but I have a feeling that either you're polishing too hard or your top coat is too thin or both.

If your top clear coat is thick and dry enough all you should need is a light buff with some mild cutting compound or T-Cut and no more than that. I tend to get a feel for it now by looking at the edges of the decals after my first coat looking for a smoothness to the transition between decal and frame but if i'm not happy with what I see I will quite often give it a very light polish with the T-cut and then put another coat on before a final polish of that.

The top coat of lacquer as well as giving you shine and depth is mostly there to protect the paint and decals so it needs to be thick enough to do it's job.