Rattle-can 101

First thing I have to say is i apologize for the pics. No matter what I do they never post straight!
I'm into the finishing stages on my bobber and I couldn't have timed the weather any better. since I'm determined to do this build completely on my own and in my garage( and it helps I'm cheap!) I decided to do my paint from a rattle can. My bike is a '72 XS2 and although I'm bobbing it, I wanted to use the original paint scheme as much as possible. I watched plenty of vids and talked to people about the prep and came to the conclusion the there are two major factors involved here, Time and proper prep. The frame went easy and I picked Rust-0leum paint as my go to shelf paint. With two cans of primer, two cans of gloss black one can of Colonial red and a can of gloss white I had my paint cost at around $20. I made sure all my bare parts were sanded with 220G and primed and I used500G to knock the gloss off any painted parts. The black went easy and something I learned on the basic parts was SAND between coats! that gives you an almost perfect finish. then came the red. I practiced on the smaller parts, light bucket and brackets and then went after the fender. I even sanded between clear coats. . then I tried my hand at striping. . Now the biggie! The tank...... I picked up a painted Sportster tank at a swap meet and had a hard time going after the nice gloss black paint job. It just looked too good! lol. I used 500G to de=gloss it and 800G to buff it afterwards. I cleaned everything before painting it with de-natured alchohol and just basically wiped the dust off. Then I shot it and waited to see the results. Tomorrow i'll post pics of the painted stripe.

 

Thanks for the tip fredintoon. I'm always paranoid at the pumps, lol Hopefully I won't be clumsy but I'll definitely keep that in mind.....

 

OK so I picked up a can of spraymax 2K which is supposed to be impervious to fuel. I sprayed all my parts and only on the tank did I get a small orange peel. Tomorrow I'll try my hand at wet-sanding and polishing.

 

thanks gggGary, Thats a good tip. well the peel was killing me, my wife thought I was crazy(again)but to me it looked like a fuzzy peach! I started with 1200g wet, went to 2000g wet then a slooooooowww even polish with my drill, a foam pad and some meguairs 104 compound. i'm very happy with the end result. Can anyone tell me how to post pics from an I-phone that aren't sideways?