Painting the Fender - Part 2

After spraying a clear coat over the fender I had to start over. The clear paint I was using was incompatible with the black paint, so once it dried it turned white and looked really cloudy. I ran my finger across it and in came off like dust in some spots. So I sanded it off and began again.

Here's the cloudy fender after the clear coat had dried...

I sanded the fender, cleaned it off with mild detergent and rinsed it with water. I started spraying it again with a semi-flat black (just a hair less glossy than the satin I started with) and eventually after a few coats it came out looking like this...

And here it is mounted on the front end that will eventually go on the SV...

I'm happy with the end result. This was the first time that I had painted anything larger than a small piece of metal, and the texture is relatively smooth and pretty uniform throughout. All in all I'll call that a win, and a small step forward towards making my little Suzuki a bit more attractive :)

Painting my Fender - Part 1

So today I got a little bored and with the lack of finances to go buy every cool motorcycle part under the sun, I decided instead to paint my GSXR fender, which has been in need of some refreshing since I rescued it from Ebay.

I forgot to snap a photo of the fender before I started, but here it is after a light scuff.

Satin Black is a nice color. It also just so happens to be one of the fullest cans in the garage, so it works out nicely :) Krylon is awesome, and this paint is specifically for plastics which helps in the adhesion process and will hopefully wear a bit more gracefully over time. (Yes the picture is upside-down... I know... just turn your head to read the can, or pick up a small child by their ankles and have them read it to you)

One thing about the Krylon Fusion paint I really like is that you can do dust coats and it dries in just a few minutes. So after three dust coats with about 15 minutes of dry in between each one, I finally sprayed on one thicker coat (really it's a light or light-medium thick coat) and it's currently drying in the sun.

So now I'm going to check it again and if it's dry then it's getting wet sanded. Be back in a bit with more of that.