Hey thanks Dustin I painted my fiance's Ninja 250 black metallic over the winter with Duplicolor rattle cans...it turned out amazing and a lot better than expected. Here is what I did: -I like Dupli-color because of it fan spray pattern and it dries fast -remove any decals and sand with 220. then clean with soap and water or alcohol. -patch any holes or rash then sand the areas with filler with 220. -Spray with 2-3 light coats adhesion promoter if you have areas of bare plastic. you should be fine without this if you didnt sand thru all the paint as the new paint should stick well if the factory paint is still in decent shape. I sprayed everything but the tank with adhesion promoter just to be safe. -Wash parts with soap and water then dry -Spray adhesion promoter and let it tack up for about 20 minutes then spray 3 light coats of primer alowing 5-10 minutes between coats. Use black primer for darker base coats and Grey primer for lighter colors. dont worry about runs in the primer as they can be sanded out easy. -Lighty sand primer coat with 400-600 grit. -Wash parts with soap and water and dry -after Primer is dry, Spray 3-5 light coats of primer sealer to help enhance the shine of the base coat you lay down. -lightly sand again with 600 grit paper. -now you are ready for your base coat. before spraying, make sure all your parts have been washed with soap and water and are dried turoughly. Spray 3-5 light coats of your color coat in even strokes, overlapping each pass about 50% to get full coverage. Don't spray a pass too slow or you will get runs but too fast will not get good coverage. I would reccomend waiting 5-10 minutes between each coat. After the parts are dry, you can respray an area if you think it needs more. -If using Duplicolor, just the base coat has an ok shine to it but I sprayed everything with clearcoat in the same manner as with the base coat. If using clear coat, do not sand the base coat, just wash with soap and water and dry parts then spray clear. -After the clear coat is dry, wait about a good week to let the paint fully cure then wet sand with 1000 grit and then with 1500 grit to smooth out any orange peel. -after wet sanding, those of you with out a buffer, I used turtle wax liquid rubbing compound and applied it by hand just like waxing a car and followed it up with turtle wax liquid polishing compound to bring back the shine to the paint after wet sanding. -this polishing process takes a lot of time, patience, and elbow grease -after the two stages of compound, I applied scratch and swirl remover and followed that up with spray polish. -After all said and done my project rurned out pretty darn good with high gloss similar to a professional paint job and minimal orange peel. some of the peices actually look like they were professionally sprayed... - For the ninja 250 I used 4 cans primer, 4 cans primer sealer, 5 cans base coat, 5 cans clear, and a ton of sanding and polishing...total investment $70 and about 2 months of what little free time I have. I will admit that I sprayed more coats than meeded for the base and clear coats but I wanted to make sure I had good smooth even coverege. If you have any questions, feel free to ask, I know this was a long post.
