1979 Laverda 1200 Mirage green???

I was never able to get even a rough ballpark quote out of Dream Machine despite several requests, and while I appreciate Gavin's notice that he has the Mirage green paint and stickers available in the U.K., it seems a little silly to me to have to ship paint from the U.K. to western Canada if it is even possible to do so.

so, I have still been hunting around. I am about to spray my 78 Kawasaki 650 SR project in a candy red metallic water base product, silver base coat, red colour coat, then clear. I checked with my paint supplier for the 75 BMW metallic green, the tiny sample chips are pretty much useless, but in leafing through the House of Kolor Kustom catalog, I came across a FBC 09 "Planet Green" under a KK 02 "Lime Gold" metallic which very much looked like my minds eye image of Mirage metallic lizard green. As I don't have anything to compare it to other than photos, that may have to be close enough, we'll see. The metallic flake is kind of finer than I would like, but I could add a coarser metal flake to the clear, perhaps.

anyway, I splurged on new paint spray equipment, a new DevilBiss "Finish Line" gun fully anodized externally and internally, plastic gravity feed cup, all stainless steel fittings, set up specifically for water base products, a much larger air i.d. hose for more air volume, and direct attachments to the compressor and the gun, to get rid of the incredibly restrictive quick connects. Interesting fact. I have a 5 hp compressor on a 30 gallon tank. With a quick connect at the tank, and a quick connect at the gun, and with the air pressure at the tank at 100 psi, the gun will will barely flow 10 psi at the gun continuous, much less than the 23 psi continuous I need at the gun. With the only change being removing the quick connects and attaching the hose directly, the gun flows 23 psi effortlessly at only 40 psi at the tank. Apparently there are less restrictive high volume quick connects available, may be worth looking into for all the air tools, should easily double or triple the working pressure at my sand blaster cabinet nozzle, for example. Here I thought I needed a bigger more expensive compressor to spray High Volume Low Pressure (HVLP), turns out I only needed to figure out how restrictive a standard quick connect actually is........ I wonder how many people are thinking about upgrading their compressors when all they likely really need to do is get rid of the crappy highly restrictive quick connects?

Paul LeClair

ps I know working with water based auto paint products may be old hat to all of those in Europe where they have now been around 10 + years, but here in Canada this is new fangled stuff only very slowly, and very reluctantly, being adopted, with very limited acceptance so far. I am only using it to push my learning boundaries a bit, and to see what the fuss is all about. Any tips from anyone who has been working with water based produucts for a while would be greatly appreciated.
 
For a while the painter who has been doing all of my stuff for the last umpteen years was having problems with the clear coat and fuel working its way past and causing the paint to peel away. At some point he figured out the stuff does need to go into an oven at 60 degrees Celsius for a bit so it hardens properly. If left to air dry it will dry out but  there's some sort of hardening process that doesn't take place. Since that's been sorted no more problems.

Tom
 
jotacorsa said:
paul, don't forget to plumb a good quality filter between compressor and gun
oil vapour and water don't go well with paint
cheers,
scott
Click to expand...

Hi Scott

to get enough air pressure/volume at the HVLP gun, I actually had to remove the quick connects from both ends of the hose and plumb direct, go to a 1/2 inch hose of 25 feet, and then, finally, remove my large inline air dryer/oil seperator. That got me the required 23 psi continuous at the gun, with my 5 hp 30 gallon compressor

I went back to the auto body/paint supply place and bought a specific high flow water/oil seperator, which somehow allows enough pressure at the gun while claiming to remove any trace of water or oil. The etching primer and the high build primer sprayed Ok with a 1.8 gun tip,no apparent water or oil issues. I also drained the compressor before starting, and i will do so agiaain before I spray the base/colour/clear later in the week, with a 1.3 tip.

if I was going to do a lot of this automotive water base painting, I could see having to upgrade to a much larger compressor. I have all the Kawa 650 bodywork in high build primer at present, I have a bunch of fine sanding and final prep still to do, I will probably shoot silver base coat/red candy coat/clear coat in one continuous go (with appropriate drying times in between coats) one day later this week. The Kawa 650 is my guinea pig for my first time use of all waterborne paint products, if it turns out well I will move on to the 79 1200 Mirage bodywork... I'll post some photos later in the week. If it doesn't turn out well, I will go back to solvent based products for the 1200. We'll see.....

Paul LeClair
 
Paul, I got told by my painter guy that waterbased paints really need a longer time in a drying oven as the water takes much longer to evaporate.
I assume you have some sort of drying facility?
He said it took at least twice as long (at the same temperature) to achieve the same result.
Without heating the paint it does not harden up the same.
 
I think he said 70?C, but may be mistaken.
He usually heated non waterbased painted parts for 30 minutes but said he needed an hour or 90 minutes with waterbased systems.
His point was that no one mentions the extra energy consumed, therefore increased carbon footprint and all that, when they claim the benefits of the move to waterbased systems.
 
I would think too humid anyway. Need a dry heat. There are still a hell of a lot of organic solvents in water-based paints as well.
 
Grant said:
Paul, I got told by my painter guy that waterbased paints really need a longer time in a drying oven as the water takes much longer to evaporate.
I assume you have some sort of drying facility?
He said it took at least twice as long (at the same temperature) to achieve the same result.
Without heating the paint it does not harden up the same.
Click to expand...

Hi Grant

you assume I have some sort of drying facilty...... laughing out loud. I have a large residential garage chock full of stuff, a bunch of tarps covering everything as best I can, with two large sealed infrared heaters (each 12 feet long and 50,000 btu each) on the back wall.  Here is a link to the heater type, actually made in Calgary.     http://www.calcana.com/garage-heaters/garage-heaters.htm    Closest I am going to get to a drying facility is moving the freshly painted parts in front of the wall heaters, and turn the heat way up overnight. The infrared heaters actually heat whatever the energy is directed at, so they should have the freshly painted parts quite hot if situated properly.

I already figured out from the primer when I tried to sand within a couple of hours that the stuff takes a long time to actually dry all the way through. Trying to sand within a couple of hours made quite a mess, thankfully I had chosen to start with the short back fender, and I wound up stripping it back to bare metal again to deal with the way the primer was sort of balling up under the sand paper. The way I am dealing with the primer drying issue now is just let it sit for a couple of days before detail sanding, I am in no rush, and it always helps to step away and look at things with fresh eyes a day or two later. I was looking at the primed tank this morning noticing that I missed another small dent, I'll patch and sand that, then reprime that area, and leave it again for another day at least.

Paul LeClair

ps I agree with your painter about more energy use, especially the energy required to drive the much larger volume of air required to the spray gun, new spay guns better suited to the water based paints, plastic containers for the water based paints rather than metal cans, new compressors, new and heavier duty wiring to the new compressors, additional heat required for drying and extended drying times, and more time genearlly waiting for things to dry, when they "flash off" and appear dry, they aren't.
 
Hi Paul .

  I have a damaged side panel in the Lizard Green... One of the mounting mushrooms has broken and been lost... Doh !

    You are very welcome to it on the one condition you donate my postage costs to the charity of your choice....I do not require any payment as it is worthless except for a paint code.... The paint was applied about fifteen years ago and is perfect...

  I have had a litre mixed and have couple of NOS panels to paint up .... In the meantime I and fitting a Jota roundbadge tank , early side panels and a 3c hump seat all in black...

                      Please get in touch if interested

                                      Kindest Regards

                                            Tim
 
Paul, that heating system may indeed do the trick.

My painter paints the parts, then oven dries them, then leaves them at least a week to 10 days before buffing them up as he also found what you just described about the paint still being soft underneath.
Sounds like you have all the important stuff in hand now.
I look forward to your pics of the finished articles.
 
Paul.......

    I DO NOT want a penny... I have just wrapped this parcel .. IT IS ADDRESSED AND READY TO GO !!

          Just drop a few Quid into a tin of your choice PLEASE !

              It may be a day or so until I make the post .  It is a done deal .

                        Fucking autheristic or WHAT  :D


 
Thanks very much, Tim, very kind. I'll wait to select the Mirage green paint colour until I have the side cover from you to take to the paiint shop to have colour matched.

Paul LeClair

ps Tom, my garage heaters won't get the large garage itseld to 60 Celsius but I'll bet they will get the parts to that temp or above if I put the bits right in front of the heaters. Very useful info, thanks.
 
There is NO WAY I could have dropped a sample of the Green without getting busted.

    There is TO MUCH Lithium nitride , A heavy trace,

          The GOLD trace always made made me laugh !
 
Tim's Mirage green sidecover arrived from the U.K. a few days ago, Thanks, Tim!

I took it to my paint supplier today, who is now telling me how tough to colour match it is going to be.... I left the sample side cover with the paint supplier, will be interesting tio see what he comes up with for a match.

Paul LeClair
 
Paul, the actual colour is not that difficult, but the flake size makes a HELL of a difference to how it pops in the sunlight.
Push them to make sure they can get the flake size right, much larger than is normally used, so probably means different jets in their spray gun.
 
Hi Grant and Paul...

  That is EXCACTLY what the guy who made my paint said.... He spoke of large "Gold fleck and a slightly off white yellow laquer"...... ????

    The panel I sent Paul was spayed up by Dream Machine at Great expense by the bikes original owner... Dream machine held the paint codes but will NOT tell what they are (BASTARDS!!).

  Suppose I am lucky as I have a good contact at Salford University who scanned the colour and diagnosed the match did a through job ..... The match is FUCKING PERFECT !!

  It is shame as I have 2 litres of this stuff sat on the shelf but can't send it as it is celluose.. I don't fancy spending my Summer in a US Cubian detention camp.....Although... !!

                        Orange boiler suits ??!!! 

 
 
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