1979 Laverda 1200 Mirage green???

[The Three Dellortos]

I am totally knackered as far as this subject is concerned

  Try you local body repair shop

 

[Paul LeClair]

Hi Scott, Tim, and all

nearly 1:00 am here as I type, just came in from the garage from repairing the side cover that fell onto the floor in my home made paint booth after three colour coats... Finally I had to strip it all the way back to bare plastic or whatever it is made of, sanded/sanded/sanded ad nauseum, finally got back to a smooth working surface, and sprayed the first high build primer coat, which I will let dry overnight. I need to catch this sidepanel up to the other body parts by three wet colour coats, then I will have to wet sand the rest of the bodywork left to sit overnight in colourcoat so I can move on to clear coat. However, because the colour is a high metallic, after I wet sand I will have to spary probably twomore colour coats before moving on to clear,,, all part of the fun I guess, I am learning lots.

This newfangled High Volume Low Pressure gun is great to work with, much easier than my old primitive stone age system, and very forgiving, the colour coat has flowed out beautifully, hiding my inexperience very well the only problem so far has been my operator error knocking the wet sidecover off its stand

Paul LeClair

 

[Paul LeClair]

so, I have finished all the prep and spraying, now I have to wait a few days for the clear coat to set enough that I can begin wet sanding and polishing.

the colour is an Orchid Green metallic. Then I added PPG prismatic flake to the first two coats of clear. Then I added some gold flake to the third coat of clear. Then I sprayed 5 more coats of clear, for a grand total of 8 coats, honey thick, mirror bright.

My girlfriend took one look at the end product in the sunlight, said "that's absolutely gorgeous, it is going to be the disco Laverda". The green colour pops in the sun, with the prismatic flake exhibiting every colour in the rainbow in bright sparkes , the photos don't do it justice at all. A couple of photos attached.. My interpretation of Mirage lizard green 2011, won't be everyones cup of tea, but that is part of the fun....

Paul LeClair

ps

it appears that the main trick to using a new HVLP gun with 23 psi at the gun inlet, and nearly 10 psi spray output is to do what I wound up doing, and silicone the parts to the parts stands so the gun spray couldn't blow them around...... :'(

 

[jotacorsa]

nice 
the difference from inside a fluorescent lit shed and outdoors in sunlight can be astonishing

i took the 750 bits into the sun yesterday to help bake the clear coat

in the shade under fluorescent light the color looks original with a very fine hint of metallic
out in the sun you can't stop looking at it as this shade seems to have pearl that picks up a variety of shades
pics don't do it justice. we've had a few cooler days so the clear hasn't cured enough to color sand and buff

like yours, paul, it won't get lost in a sea of orange 

 

[Dellortoman]

I have a friend who calls that colour "snot green" 

 

[laverdakeith]

tell them yes it is

 

[Paul LeClair]

sounds like that friend may spend way too much time with his finger up his nose and examining the result closely.......

dare to be different, boys, dare to be different, you don't have to run with the orange sheep orange is for SFC 750's and some Jota's 8)

Paul LeClair

 

[bob]

My interpretation of Mirage lizard green 2011, won't be everyones cup of tea, but that is part of the fun....

Looks pretty good to me Paul . I like modern takes on classic themes and don't see anything wrong in using a current paint colour which harks back to a bike's roots. Look forward to seeing everything fully assembled.
Bob

 

[Paul LeClair]

well, the 79 Laverda 1200 bits are all wet sanded, from 400 grit, to 2000 grit, work bench is a huge mess, I am a huge mess, and I am debating maybe shooting one or two more coats of clear rather than move on to polishing. Late at night here, I will sleep on it and decide on the next step in the morning. I wet sanded back a good bit of the final 4 coats of clear clear, would be nice to have a bit more protection on the top of the tank particularly to have extra clear material to eventually sand back and repolish as the tank scratches up over time.

I stripped all the plastic off my temporary paint booth earlier today to get rid of all the green paint residue from the Laverda, pressure washed the garage floor, and plastic sheeted the temporary paint booth with fresh plastic for my next bike prioject, fresh furnace filter on the fan, everything nice and clean ready to shoot candy red, silver metallic base, transparent red top coat, and some 0.4 micron "Sonic Silver" flake in the first coat of clear to treally make it pop on my 78 Kawasaki 650 project.

I am having fun, learning a lot, and looking for more things around the garage to paint "while I am at it......"

Paul LeClair

 

[madrid]

well, the 79 Laverda 1200 bits are all wet sanded, from 400 grit, to 2000 grit, work bench is a huge mess, I am a huge mess, and I am debating maybe shooting

...Phew, I thought it had all got too much for you.

 

[lemonjelly]

[
I am having fun, learning a lot, and looking for more things around the garage to paint "while I am at it......"

Paul LeClair
[/quote]

Paul turn yourself into a green martian  "ooh the claw"

Lemon

 

[Davo]

"Not the Craw, the Craw!!" The Craw

 

[Scrumpy]

Paul,
Whilst trawling through Ebay I see that the the Mirage wich had the Steve Foinch paint job is back on. In the description it states that it has been repainted in original Mirage green. Could be that the shop selling the bike commissioned the paintjob and can identify the paint code or put you in touch with the paint sprayer.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/1978-LAVERDA-MIRAGE-EXCLUSIVE-LTD-EDITION-WOW-/130485048721?pt=UK_Motorcycles&hash=item1e6183d591

Scrumpy

 

[Paul LeClair]

my 79 1200 Mirage paint job is now finished, just waiting for the clear to cure..... I completed it in my personal 2011 interpretation of Mirage green, with a ton of prismatic flake, then an additional layer of gold flake, then two more coats of clear. REALLY sparkles in teh sun.

I think the closest I saw to 1978 Mirage metal flake green while looking at colours is a shamrock green, I think that with some gold flake in the clear would come pretty close to the original.

ANother alternative that I considered would be to do a basic black colour coat, then load up some clear with the shamrock green 0.4 micron flake, and keep spraying shamrock green flake until the black disappears, then clear over that with a gold flake, I think that would look stunning.

see www.paintwithpearl.com for some ideas as to what is available very inexpensively. Local to me a 4 oz container of flake from PPG has an asking retail price of over $60, this gal is sellling the same or better product for $10....

Paul LeClair

 

[henry]

sounds like that friend may spend way too much time with his finger up his nose and examining the result closely.......

dare to be different, boys, dare to be different, you don't have to run with the orange sheep orange is for SFC 750's and some Jota's 8)

Paul LeClair

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[Paul LeClair]

here are a couple of photos of the final result of my paint job on my spare set of 1979 1200 bodywork, done at home in my garage in a home made paint booth. I have now finished the wet sanding and polishing, although I made the mistake of placing the side covers on their face for the glue I used on the back of the sidecovers on the badge pins to dry, which marked the clear on the face of the sidecovers a bit, I'll have to recompound and repolish.... The dark thin line in three of the four photos is a shadow from an overhead light bar in the garage, not in the paint, it is pouring rain here at the moment so I can't take the body parts out into the (presently non existent) sun to photograph them.

I have a lot of prismatic flake and gold flake in the multiple layers of clear, the sparkle is brilliant in the sun, so is the ultra metallic silver striping. Not to everyone's taste I know, but so what, I like it!! There is so much clear on the parts that it will take a few weeks for the paint job to fully cure, then I will mount everything on the bike and shoot a few photos of the finished and assembled bike.....

Paul LeClair

 

[Simonr501]

The silver stripes really work Paul.
You have done a great job!

 

[Jota Rob]

Your attention to detail is impressive, whether I like the colour is academic (certainly dont dislike it), I think the scheme is cool and probably harder to achieve than you've made it look...Well done that man !

Will be good to see it on the bike and how it works with the bike overall.

 

[Scrumpy]

Pulled up behind one of these Skoda Fabia's today. Another great green.

Scrumpy

http://www.skodafabia-vrs.co.uk/

 

[Paul LeClair]

Your attention to detail is impressive, whether I like the colour is academic (certainly dont dislike it), I think the scheme is cool and probably harder to achieve than you've made it look...Well done that man !

Will be good to see it on the bike and how it works with the bike overall.

Hi Rob

yeah, I have a bit of the perfectionist in me, and it is hard to know when to stop....There are still a few flaws here and there, and getting the flake on in an even consistent coat is really challenging, but overall I am thrilled with the final product given it was done at home in my own garage, and is a LOT better than I have seen coming out of some of the local highly expensive bike painters that I have paid in the past for lesser quality.

I would say 85 per cent of the quality of the job comes from the initial preparation and sanding, 5 per cent from the actual spraying of the product, and the final 10 per cent is the wet sanding/compounding/foam polishing. You absolutely simply can't do enough initial prep, and the more you do, the better the final outcome.

It is going to take at least three weeks for that much clear to settle down, but I can probably carefully mount it on the bike in the next week or so for a look see.....!!!

In the mean time, I am fighting the urge to do the other set of presently all black 79 1200 bodywork in a straight metal flake fire red, with the colour all coming exclusively from the flake (see attached photo below of the fire red flake mixed in clear sprayed over a black base coat) like a really high end early 60's hot rod, but I am painting the 1978 Kawasaki 650 SR next, in tri stage candy red metallic, and I picked up some ultra fine silver flake to add to the clear..... I have all the Kawa bodywork final prepped and ready to spray later this week.

Paul LeClair