Custom Paint - Workshop specials.

What made the paint such a bastard?

Sometimes less is more.. very beautiful!

Ah fuck that. The Hoolet MTB I posted on the other page is colour matched to Porsche 414 Earth Olive.

I spent two weeks phoning around Porsche restorters after the usual supplier could only supply singlestage 1K. Specifically asking for basecoat and not 1K singlestage or 2K.

All but one said aye, got it, stupidly didn't do a test tube because it was a lunchtime project, and it was bloody 2K. Sprayed it thinking it was basecoat and as it stayed glossy and didn't flash off knew I was in trouble.

Hassle to strip back to the primer but managed to mix a pretty close match out of what we had in stock.

Single colour though is my jam. Unless its black. Because fuck black.

2k is a very different kettle of fish to base, and is a pain to paint over a mask. Single colour is the sort of thing that sorts the men from the boys, there is nowhere to hide. The combination of these two things made it a challenge.

Also there were no fades so I just kept getting bored.... ;)

Not much more annoying than 2k. Maybe matte.

Finishing tests should be paint two bikes, one black with white decals, one white with black decals. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.

I'd have mixed something up, but am colour blind so that never ends well...

I thought if you had a colour code that any type of paint can be mixed to the colour you want.

Lol far too simple!

The way I've been told it, is that the old single stage colour formulas were never transposed into the modern two stage systems. Basically its a computer says no situation.

That'll explain those fades ;)

I've only done 2K colour bike and I'd gladly not repeat the process. I'd rather do matte by a longshot, shoot it, remove the masks the next day and it is ready to be built.

Here I am coming from the automotive world Now we are having a bit of a language problem. 1k and 2k I thought that just meant that on need an activator to set.

Am more used to calling paint either cellulose, 2 pack as the one you need an air fed mask to paint and then acrylic, polyurethane paints or base and clear coat.

Never knew that, thought that modern tech meant that paint scanners can copy anything.

Aye I think everyone gets confused, as I know it...

1K single stage is like the old cellulose, colour and gloss you just spray on after reducing.

I think we are talking about 2K single stage which is again like cellulose but also requires hardener/activator.

And all we want is 2K two stage, aka base/clear coat.

They can but they require someone to do it. Despite The Bridge I reckon Earth Olive isn't the most popular colour

What he said ^

So what exactly is the problem with modern 2K? Is it something to do with application & drying characteristics?

My first ever real job was developing paints for industry many moons ago, making paints from scratch & testing them on various surfaces & for different applications. There shouldn't be any reason you can't modify twin-packs to behave as you want. IIRC using different activator/thinner ratios will change how paint applies & dries

There is nothing wrong with 2K primer or clear coat.

There is everything wrong with having to use a colour which is only available as a 2K single stage. You’ve got to get full coverage on at a push three coats, wait for a day for it to dry, carefully wet sand it avoiding rubbing through on all the tiny sharp edges bike have, then do your graphics as normal and then clear coat it with your chosen 2K clear cloat.

It's also an application issue. With a car for example you're just chucking one colour on. With bikes, even with 'one colour' paint jobs you are going to have decals to add, either below or on top, and that is where it becomes a pain in the ballbag.

In the stand today:

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Fuck me.

That's going to look amazing under gloss

@privatepatterson, thanks. Just out of interest at this stage and also learning different processes etc. To be honest, I am a big fan of black on black (different textures) or dark colour on dark colour...

There's a couple of Quirk projects that tackle this effect quite well without it going the obvious Dentist route of matte and gloss combos on a Cervelo/S-Works etc. I'll upload pics when they're done.

But black is the best colour. By far.

So good. Very expressionist.

With a vehicle, the panels are flat ish while a bike isn't very flat.