V Star 650

Here's what I did. Lucky the cable hides my welds. Lap joint of 0.035 on to 11g tubing was a challenge to make pretty.







 
Turning out small details. The spacers under the brake aluminum brake brackets were simple cylinders, I turned a little cove into them. The trim rings under the bars were basically stainless washers. I made new ones a tiny bit bigger in diameter (to adequately cover countersinks below) and added similar feature to the recent axle caps.







 
I found that boots that fit on the shift linkage also will fit on the rod end bearings I used on the brake arm stay
 
I did the same test with the belly pan i put on my GSXR, you have more room than i do.
Also that is ton of snow on the ground still!
 
Got out for a few miles. Had one rattle from a breather that hit a new bracket for the ignition. Sorted that and got a few more miles. No issues with the rear fender other than that I do have to be careful exiting the driveway or I scrape. Have not found a speedbump yet, I might have to go look for one.



 
A few details before tearing down for paint. Internal mud flap was taped in place, now it has a simple clamp. The bike had a system to inject air into the exhaust to reduce emissions. All that clap trap is removed and the air injection ports capped with 45 shell casings.

For paint, I appreciate all the input and took a long hard look at a two tone scheme. I made dozens of sketches with different ideas but could never come up with one that I thought I could do. I was looking at silver and black in some combination. At this point I'm thinking high gloss black on forks, tank and fender and keep the frame black as well. Then do some silver pinstriping to bring in a second color.



 
You DO realize that black is the fastest color - to show dirt! (Don't worry,speed bumps will find YOU.)
 
Any color you choose will turn out well because you hold your work to a high standard; There is an auto paint color floating out there called sapphire silver blue.. with a very small amount of black metal flake in- it has a rly good ability to accent curves and lines
 
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The painting begins. I did the side covers first with a base coat of black and a gloss clear coat. Both were 2k from a rattle can, the Spraymax brand. We'll see how they buff out as I got more dust than I was hoping for. The frame got touched up with primer over the welded areas and Krylon gloss black as it was the best match to the black on the frame I could find locally.







 
Slowly making progress.

It's official; I hate doing body filler. I don't have much experience and wondering how far to go with coverage. Do I need to fully cover all the bare metal spots or can a few of them peek through as long as I'm getting to all my guide coat on final sand?



 
Like all things with an entire industry dedicated to it, there are tons of different opinions and options. My "I'm-going-all-in" paint job layering is: epoxy primer, body filler, another coat of epoxy to seal any bare spots, high build primer, then some type of sealer (usually thin out epoxy primer with acetone), then base and clear.

That being said if you're not using super expensive paint it may not be worth the extra steps. When you have $600-800 in paint or a ton of time in body work or stripes etc. it becomes more worth it to cover your ass. Ideally you want to seal all metal with a direct to metal primer, if the bare metal spots are small you can usually get away with skipping that.

This thing is going to be a real class act with black and pin stripes. are you hand painting the stripes or doing them with tape?
 
doc_rot said:
Like all things with an entire industry dedicated to it, there are tons of different opinions and options. My "I'm-going-all-in" paint job layering is: epoxy primer, body filler, another coat of epoxy to seal any bare spots, high build primer, then some type of sealer (usually thin out epoxy primer with acetone), then base and clear.

That being said if you're not using super expensive paint it may not be worth the extra steps. When you have $600-800 in paint or a ton of time in body work or stripes etc. it becomes more worth it to cover your ass. Ideally you want to seal all metal with a direct to metal primer, if the bare metal spots are small you can usually get away with skipping that.

This thing is going to be a real class act with black and pin stripes. are you hand painting the stripes or doing them with tape?
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Thanks for the thoughtful response.

So far I'm going mostly down the path of your all in approach. So far it's exclusively 2k products from Spraymax. There's a base of epoxy and the filler so far. I plan to epoxy over that to cover up the bare spots followed by a 2k high build primer. Then for the final session my buddy says go epoxy, base coat, clear coat all wet on wet. I've also sent the pictured below to him and he's indicated if I'm doing the high build I could probably proceed with the next coat of epoxy.

I picked up some brushes and pinstripe paint to have a go at that. Practice has been spotty and I can see it's long learning curve. It's nerve wracking enough to just get a clean coat of paint so I don't think I'll be putting the stripes in with masking and peeling. Plus I don't have a settled strip design. So for now I plan the get black done and then decide how to pin stripe. I figure I'll let the clear coat harden for a while and either keep practicing hand striping or search for someone that has the skills and then hire them when the time is right. I might do some playing with design using vinyl pinstripes too but I feel like hand painting lends itself to a more detailed design. So not 100% sure how the stripes will get done.





 
chemical crosslink is the way to go, just follow the flash times and you will be good. If you are spraying the 2k clear in your garage mind your PPE and if your garage is attached to the house you will want to open some windows. 2k clear has Isocynates in it.
 
This is after another coat of epoxy primer, sand to 320, fill a few pinholes with glazing compound, sand to 320, a coat of high build 2k primer, sanding 400, top coat gloss black, top coat clear super glossy. It's still wet in this photo, drying smoothed it out a bit and I'll probably wet sand and buff out to deal with the orange peel. But this is pretty close to the final gloss. And it rotated funny so don't get thrown off by the background being sideways ;-)

 
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