This is one of the parts of a project that most people say “get a professional!” about… (The other is head work but we’ll come to that…) Still, the point of the project was to learn new skills, and I’m not going for a concours level finish, so I really wanted to try and do the tank myself. I don’t have a compressor so it would have to be a rattle can job, however I have seen more and more good results for small jobs using cans, and spray can technology has come a long way including custom colours, 2K systems and different nozzle options.
I did learn a lot from this job. I learned that the paint on old bikes is like an archeological dig. You find stuff you weren’t expecting from previous civilisations! Most importantly I learned that you won’t get it right first go and that good results require a lot of time. And that this time is mainly spent in the preparation and sanding phase, rather than the actual painting.
The tank was stripped back to bare metal using paint stripper and an orbital sander. This was time consuming. During the process a previously repaired dent was uncovered. Also the underlying metallic turquoise paint scheme (this was not a R65LS paint scheme so the tank may have been a replacement at some stage).
Unfortunately the dent on the tank was on a troublesome area (high spots) and I over-sanded it on the way down. I didn’t really appreciate that I had flattened the contour of the right upper edge and also the right high point behind the badge area until I had applied the first coat of primer. You can see in the photo it was more obvious then. So I sanded it back and applied more filler and started again.
This filler was from an old injury 
After a lot of time using filler, etch primer, high fill primer and lots of sand paper I got it to where I thought it looked good. The first coat of primer which goes on quite matte was very useful each time for assessing the contours- irregularities seem to show up better.
I was sanding with 180grit paper between each coat of primer (I ended up with 3-4 coats) and sanded down with some 400g after the final coat of primer. Then I started laying on top coats. Unfortunately after the first layer of topcoat I still wasn’t happy with the upper right hand edge (where the filler was) and I also discovered that a tiny dent on the top left which I had hoped would just fill in with paint, hadn’t. So- sanded back in some patches for some repairs.
When I had the first colour basecoat right I undertook the tricky job of masking off the pinstripes. This was with the help of Mrs GFP who was very meticulous with the measuring. I used 6mm 3M masking tape which is quite easy to curve around corners. Then the tank was masked off and the darker basecoat applied. This was followed by a 2k in a can clear coat. The result is pretty close to what I was after.
