Painting Tins. No really...

What color should these tins be?

  • Candy green and white a la XS1

    Votes: 15 30.0%
  • Candy gold and white a la XS1

    Votes: 19 38.0%
  • Candy red and white a la XS2

    Votes: 16 32.0%

  • Total voters
    50
He didn't see the hole. Pondering that, I'm about 99% certain that it never would have dawned on me to look for a hole there either. That some idjut could take a screw too long and physically force it through a steel tank would have never occurred to me.
I'm very, very careful when I buy an item like that, but I wouldn't have thought to look for such a hole, either.
 
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Yeah, I’m still puzzled about that hole. I bought that tank two or three years ago and squirrelled it away for this project - but I never saw that ding-danged hole.
 
FA2BBCA9-4280-48F6-A387-5098414B442D.jpeg Atta boy Winston! Victory goes to the persistent! :thumbsup:
 
Your generosity has not been forgotten Gordon - truly.

Be well and stay safe through all of this. I hope to see you again at the VYR at the Iton Horse this year.
Pete
Pete.......I wasn’t looking for a pat on the back, I just feel really bad that tank had a weak spot. I didn’t see it but now I’ve learned ( never too old) how and where to check for them next time. The results are beautiful. Jim is a wizard and it’s nice to be able to follow along. Thumbs up to him for taking the time to include us. This site.....absolutely the best bike site I visit....so much information and such a great search function. I have had lots of questions and 95% of them I’ve been able to find the answer by just searching. Priceless. Pete, can’t wait to see your bike once it’s finished. I’m “Green” with envy.

We’re good so far here in my part of the world. Hope everybody else is too. Stay safe and healthy.
 
Pete.......I wasn’t looking for a pat on the back, I just feel really bad that tank had a weak spot. I didn’t see it but now I’ve learned ( never too old) how and where to check for them next time. The results are beautiful. Jim is a wizard and it’s nice to be able to follow along. Thumbs up to him for taking the time to include us. This site.....absolutely the best bike site I visit....so much information and such a great search function. I have had lots of questions and 95% of them I’ve been able to find the answer by just searching. Priceless. Pete, can’t wait to see your bike once it’s finished. I’m “Green” with envy.

We’re good so far here in my part of the world. Hope everybody else is too. Stay safe and healthy.

Great to hear Gordon - stay safe and healthy!

Pete
 
Pete's cafe tank.... Grrrr......
Yesterday was 'slosh the primer on the inside day.' Mixed up about 1-1/2 pints, poured it in, taped up the hole and shook vigorously. Poured it off and looked inside about 15-20 min later. The stuff is so thin it runs off the high spots before it sets. Knew that would happen. As it cures, the next coat sticks pretty good, so... poured the pint back in, shook, drained and checked in about 15 min. Same thing.... still wet. Hmmm.... been 30-45 min. The first coat should have took by now... it's a 15 min tack free time. Repeated the process... same result. Insanity right..;) This went on all day. Finally about dark, I sloshed some thinner in there to clean it out and called it a day. Figured I misread my mixing cup so I'll start over fresh today.

Today. Mixed some more up paying particular attention to mixing the right ratio. Also poured some on a piece of metal as a test coupon. Poured, shook, drained... waited 30 min. still wet. Checked the coupon... it's dry... well, tack free dry anyway, just like it's supposed to be. OK.. so there's nothing wrong with the primer... hmmm... Ain't this a pickle. Epoxy is epoxy damnit... It dries by a chemical reaction. Mix the two chemicals together and it goes to cookin'. Hell, it should even dry in deep space. What am I missing here? :umm: Lesse... two parts, base and hardener... thinned with solvents so it's sprayable.
Hmmm... solvents...

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Ooops... wrong light bulb...

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So... ponderin' that maybe the solvents aren't evaporating out of the paint because of saturation, I stuck a blowgun in the tank and regulated the air down to just a gentle summer breeze. came back 15 min later and stuck my finger in... and it was tacked over. Bingo!! Sloshed it 3 more times and we're done.
I guess any time you try something new there's a bit of a learning curve. :smoke:


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Paint Drying: An epoxy coating dries/curers by chemical reaction. If you assume the reaction depends on the concentration of epoxy and concentration of amine curing agent then we get the rate following a squared law. Therefore the rate is very slow while the coating is still diluted by solvent. With the tank being a confined space solvent evaporation is very slow (diffusion depends on the inverse of distance from the vent hole) so the paint stays diluted for a long time because of a poor evaporation rate. Your observation is correct that introducing a gentle breeze improves the cure rate because you have sped up evaporation. I have an epoxy primer and if I mix it and leave it sealed it is still liquid the next day, but if sprayed it is cured.

I have used ProXL 2k isocyanate clear in a can and on 16 - 20 Celsius days it will still spray 2 days later and give good petrol resistance. Again, the reaction rate is just very slow while diluted.
 
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Tech tip:
I think all old tanks have these...

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Yeah... the little dings on the seams in the front. You can tap 'em out with a hammer, but sometimes they're in a tight tunnel like this one. Suppose I could still get to it, but there's a much easier way. An 8" crescent wrench. Put it dead center on the ding and gently bend it back into place.


seam3.jpg



The entire operation from start to finish took less than 30 sec. It would have taken me that long to decide where to hit it and how hard with a hammer... and then more time tappin' some more 'cause you didn't hit hard enough... or tappin' the other way 'cause you hit it too hard. The wrench is quick and easy 'cause you can see it bending back as you pull and know exactly when to stop. Works every time.

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Tanks all sanded down ready for bondo. I think it was Paul that said to leave the factory finish and paint over it. That's good advice and my preferred way of doing it. But (ain't there always a but) that's conditional on the original finish being in good shape to start. Anywhere there's a deep scratch, it has to be sanded to feather the edges so it disappears. So the ability to do that is dependent on the number of scratches. There's a point of diminishing returns when each scratch takes about 3-5 min. to feather. I was up to about 30 scratches when I quit counting... and a lot of those were to the base metal with rust showing. So, I was looking at 3-4 hrs of feathering vs. about an hour with a 3" brown rolok disk. No contest. Down to shiny metal and on to the next step
So yeah, back in charted waters... no dragons today. :D
 
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Tech tip time. Say that 10 times real fast. :rolleyes:
Minor, almost imperceptible dings are pretty easy to spot on nice shiny paint. Dull paint... not so much.
Here's one solution. This is a cheapo 400W heater about 12" in dia. As you can see, it's puts out a distinctive pattern even on dull paint...
You can tell from the circles that I'd already done this then backtracked to give you guys some shots..... but, a nice reflection no?

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Now watch what happens when I play that reflection over a small ding.....




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Because the paint is a dull, rough and scratched up surface, I didn't feel this ding with my fingers.
Yeah... this one's gonna take a minute... :er:


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Is the solution here as simple as just using body filler to cover all of the little dings?
 
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...Simple as using body filler...
Body filler ( Bondo or the like) is a pain to work with for very small dings unless you have worked with it a lot! Bondo is tough and provides a good base. I like to use 3M Acryl-Red Glazing Putty which comes in a tube. No mixing and fast drying. Fills the small dents and scratches. Apply it, wet sand smooth, light primer and then wet sand with a sanding block, 400 paper. You will see every ding as a low place the block didn't touch. Use a little plastic applicator. Some people try and put too much at a time and then have a lot of work taking it back down.
let me pick on Jim, for a minute. He has worked with this stuff a lot. By the humidity, temperature, he just knows how much hardener he'll need to mix with the amount of filler he's going to use in a certain amount of time before the filler gets too hard. He makes it look easy but there is a learning curve. Glazing Putty or what I call "spot putty" is easier to use but won't handle big dented areas. I use "Bondo" on those and then the Glazing putty. There are so many youtubes and products it's hard to know which to use and everybody has their favorites.
 
...Simple as using body filler...
Body filler ( Bondo or the like) is a pain to work with for very small dings unless you have worked with it a lot! Bondo is tough and provides a good base. I like to use 3M Acryl-Red Glazing Putty which comes in a tube. No mixing and fast drying. Fills the small dents and scratches. Apply it, wet sand smooth, light primer and then wet sand with a sanding block, 400 paper. You will see every ding as a low place the block didn't touch. Use a little plastic applicator. Some people try and put too much at a time and then have a lot of work taking it back down.
let me pick on Jim, for a minute. He has worked with this stuff a lot. By the humidity, temperature, he just knows how much hardener he'll need to mix with the amount of filler he's going to use in a certain amount of time before the filler gets too hard. He makes it look easy but there is a learning curve. Glazing Putty or what I call "spot putty" is easier to use but won't handle big dented areas. I use "Bondo" on those and then the Glazing putty. There are so many youtubes and products it's hard to know which to use and everybody has their favorites.

I didn’t mean take anything away from the process of successfully applying filler, I’ve never done it myself so I have no idea really! I just wondered if Jim was pulling the dings out by some means.

Seems like I’ll be doing a lot of research into applying and working body filler when I get to that stage.

Daniel.
 
I didn’t mean take anything away from the process of successfully applying filler, I’ve never done it myself so I have no idea really! I just wondered if Jim was pulling the dings out by some means.

Seems like I’ll be doing a lot of research into applying and working body filler when I get to that stage.

Daniel.
Ohhh, ( Damn, I'm getting old) I don't know if Jim does but I use a dent puller. Start with a clean painted and dented tank. You apply "hot glue" to a tool tip and stick it in the dent. It cools and you slip the puller on the tool and "POP". May take many times and you may not see it doing anything at first but it will. Have to use alcohol as a release agent to get the used hot glue off the tool and tank. Then you do it again. You'll know when its done all it's going to do. I heat the tank with a heat gun but careful, it will burn the paint. The smooth paint gives a better stick to the hot glue than bare metal , I think, but it'll work both ways. Then I use aircraft paint stripper instead of a mechanical means. I never use power tools. Lots of youtubes on the pullers.
Hope this helps.
Thu
 
Pete's cafe tank. The saga battle continues...
So, went out to the garage this morning and the JB Weld cured up nice and hard on the outside... and only on the outside. :er:
The inside was a gooey, slobbery mess of grey snot. Remember how this current episode started? Yeah, a lacquer thinner slosh to get rid of the oil preservative on the inside. Well... as good as I (thought I'd) cleaned up that area, some of the oil must have remained in the metal and migrated into the JB Weld.
So... I poured a cup of thinner in there and sloshed it around. On the plus side it didn't spray everywhere with the hole gone... :rolleyes:
Poured it out, let it dry, felt around in there and fingers still came out oily. This is odd as thinner is my go to solvent for removing grease and oil on parts I want to paint. Sloshed some more in there.... same result. I thew a stupid amount of sloshes in there and still the oil wouldn't budge. Holy crap. :yikes: Pete, ask your rock tumbler guy what kind of oil that is... I want some.;)
Drastic times call for drastic measures. Yup... hydrochloric acid. Dumped a half gallon in there, taped it up and sloshed it around for about a half an hour. Rinsed 'till the water ran clear and dried it out. That did it. Clean as a whistle now.

The first thinner slosh today immediately cleaned out the gooey epoxy mess. So I've put some more JB Weld in there. Will be cured by morning and hopefully we'll slosh in some primer.
Here's a tech tip: Remove your plugs from the petcock holes, switch your shopvac from suck to blow and stuff it down the filler. Forced air drying will have it dry before the flash rust can set in.

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Great thread gents (randomly and apathetically assuming all a'all's gender).

I'm learning some stuff. Good to have an old brain trust available when one's own old brain goes into hibernate mode.

All ya gotta do is remember some passwords........
 
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