Painting Exercise

 I was sitting in front of my BSA tipping back a few cool ones and trying to decide what direction I want to go with this build. Every so often I think I know what I want then something happens and I think I need to go in a different direction. While looking at the tank I thought it would be nice to have a splash of color instead of just a gloss black paint job.
 I don't know how to do that. You saw what happened to the sportster. It's a friggin mess of color and shapes that were just created with some stencils. It looks like a third grade art project.
 I can't airbrush a design. I don't have the tools or skills. I wondered how hard it would be to tape off a design and paint it so I grabbed an old fuel tank that was collecting dust, wiped off most of the dust and got to work. This was to be an exercise to learn what will and wont work doing this type of painting. After squirting some black and letting it dry overnight, the rest of the project took about an hour and I learned a lot of "don'ts".

 That's not the fake stuff, no sir. That right there is genuine Rustoleum gloss black fizz bomb paint. I taped off an area and drew a semi complex design on it. The first lesson I learned is you can't easily cut through more than one layer of masking tape without pushing through to the bare tank and leaving deep scratches.

 The next lesson learned is to plan the pattern out in detail. After I started with the razor knife I realized there would be no going back. If this were a for real project I would have quit early on when it was obvious this was gonna look like shit. It's not a real project, it's a chance for me to learn. After I sprayed the white and pulled the tape I could see some areas that weren't cut square or I left a piece of tape. I scratched some paint getting too aggressive removing the tape and I just flat out stuck my fingers in wet paint. Later on some of it wet sanded out. I played around seeing how much sanding could be done before removing a top layer and also found out I could remove a layer of paint with the buffer.

 You can see all the flaws I pointed out. That blurry area on the two lowest white squares is where I buffed right through. Go slow, be precise and patient. OK, that probably won't happen for me so the biggest lesson learned is that a solid color will be fine for the BSA.
 On a positive note, the paint booth proved to be a winner. It's nice to have a clean, well lit and ventilated place for these projects. No dust and no stink. It has also encouraged me to try some more of these painting experiments and see if I can come up with something that doesn't look like shit.


Later.