Tenni paint touch up

[Wgmd]

When I recently purchased my 2002 Tenni it was obvious I needed to touch up its paint job. The two areas of most significance was the tail piece and a very poorly right front fairing repair. For the tail I had FMF Coatings scan it and mix up the paint in an aerosol. They were unable to get a good match on the green but I found the Lechler code for it, GUZDS08047 and had Classic Car Paints Direct mix it up in an aerosol as well. Both UK firms by the way. I’m sure many of you are saying paint in an aerosol is no good but I beg to differ. It’s the same paint formula you would get in a tin of paint, it’s guaranteed to have no moisture and they spray nozzles are very good with no air pressure issues (I also paint with conventional spray gun equipment). In the following pictures the tail piece has been painted with the base silver, have the code for it if anyone wants it. Will apply the “Tenni” decals once they arrive from The Images Works decal makers . As these paints are both base coats will spray with matt lacquer top coat once the decals are applied. In thr picture of the right front fairing have removed the poorly applied top coat in preparation of final repair. Will post pictures of final repeats once completed. Interested in your comments as always

[footgoose]

Looks great so far and judging by your depth of research it will come out nice. I'm looking forward to the finished project. If you'd like I'll post your photos larger with my image host (ImgZeit) Just say the word and I'll pm my email address to you. I tried using the small ones but the low rez doesn't show well.

I doubt they'll ship aerosol cans to the US. Maybe someone here can duplicate. Or I could find a smuggler.

[Wgmd]

Thank you for the offer to post larger images I would appreciate that. Pm your email address please and I’ll do the same

[Lucky Phil]

4 hours ago, Wgmd said:

Thank you for the offer to post larger images I would appreciate that. Pm your email address please and I’ll do the same

So far so good but I wonder why if you have access to proper spray equipment you wouldn't use that? You can get decent spray cans but they will never equal a spray gun for control and consistency. You may as well just repaint the whole fairing also. Code matching colours doesn't mean you'll get a colour match on the repaired panel as paint mixed in small batches has an issue with "tolerances" on the pigments. Imagine at the factory when they do a paint run of a particular colour and mix 100 litres of paint a gram of pigment either way isn't going to have much affect on the colour. Now imagine mixing 500ml. A drop of pigment the size of a pin head will make the colour different. Thats why spray painters still need to colour match by eye for repair work no matter how sophisticated their computer controlled matching equipment is. We haven't even got to fading due to the affects of the sun etc yet and add the complication of a base coat and various coats of tinted clear coats like a V11 Greenie has. My advice as an amateur painter just like me is to spray the whole fairing to go with the full paint on the tail piece even if you mask off the number boards. In for a penny in for a pound. 

Similarly a professional motorcycle painter wont do spot paint repairs on fuel tank damage or fairing damage mostly simply because it's harder to mess about with colour matching and then blending in the paint repair. As one explained to me 30 years ago by the time you go through all that palaver it's faster and easier to just paint the whole tank or fairing component and the result is far superior. He was correct of course.    

Phil  

Edited August 26 by Lucky Phil

[Wgmd]

All good points Phil, you will notice I did paint all of the tail piece. With a base/clear paint system I’ve had better results with aerosols than with my conventional equipment and methods. Suspect that’s due to my inexperience. For the front fairing repair I do have a plan to minimize the colour differences between the original and the repair. Will post a picture of the results. If they are poor will paint the whole of the front fairing but hope that will not be required. Thank you for your well thought out reply.

[Lucky Phil]

6 minutes ago, Wgmd said:

All good points Phil, you will notice I did paint all of the tail piece. With a base/clear paint system I’ve had better results with aerosols than with my conventional equipment and methods. Suspect that’s due to my inexperience. For the front fairing repair I do have a plan to minimize the colour differences between the original and the repair. Will post a picture of the results. If they are poor will paint the whole of the front fairing but hope that will not be required. Thank you for your well thought out reply.

Looking fwd to seeing how it turns out.

Phil

[Wgmd]

Paint showed up and I’ve finished the repairs to right upper fairing using filler, plastic primer and high solids primer. Will paint tomorrow and post pictures of the results in a couple of days regardless of outcome,

[Wgmd]

[footgoose]

[Wgmd]

A chum posted these photos for me to show greater detail, thanks David more work headed your way! Phil, you’re quite right not a prefect match but close. The left side of this small under chin piece has been painted and the right side is the original so this gives some perspective of the mismatch in colour. In this application it’s acceptable for me. I painted all of the right side of the fairing other than the top inch or so, masked it off on the body line so the mismatch is far less obvious where the two panels meet. Plan on clear coating in a Matt finish so finished phots to follow

[footgoose]

If you click on the photos they will get quite large for detail. The representation is very good considering it's a rattle can. I didn't realize it is the new paint next to original till you mentioned it.  For those who don't know, the '02 Tenni paint is a matte finish, and is meant to mimic the factory race paint zinc chromate (green) and the bare hammered aluminum gas tank. The bike came with a faux suede seat as well as a black vinyl one. I wish they'd done wire spoke rims. 

[Wgmd]

Spoked rims ……now there’s an idea for a Canadian that doesn’t have enough to do!!!

[footgoose]

 

 

as a Tenni owner, I'd be very happy with the result.

 

[Wgmd]

57 minutes ago, footgoose said:

 

 

as a Tenni owner, I'd be very happy with the result.

 

 

[Wgmd]

Thanks for posting David. Asked David to post this in larger format, the main side panel has been painted but the small sub panel that bolts to it is original paint and decal so again one can see the slight shade differences that are acceptable to me but perhaps not all.