Painting my plastics according to the stickied thread, and it's not drying. What am I doing wrong?

[PrincessFalafal]

tl;dr - color coat isn't drying, still tacky and soft after 5 days. WTF?

I'm painting the plastics on my SV650 and following the advice in the stickied thread. I stripped everything down to the bare plastic, used an adhesion promoter, a good high-build primer, a quality color-matched paint from an auto paint shop and will (eventually) be finishing with a 2k urethane clear coat.

But the color coat doesn't seem to be drying like I would expect. After letting it sit for five days now, it's still tacky enough that any dust sticks to it permanently and I can easily dent it with my fingernail. What am I doing wrong?

I'm doing this at MotoGuild on Treasure Island, air temps have been in the low 60s when I'm doing this. Thinking that it might be a temperature issue I have set up some heat lamps for a few hours to try and kick the process along, but it doesn't seam to have helped.

This is the label from the paint can, it's a Fill-One and the auto shop says that it's using Sherwin Williams paint.

Am I doing something wrong? What can I do to make sure the rest of this process goes properly before I put the 2k clear-coat on?

 

[stangmx13]

What SherwinWilliams paint? You need the type and the spec sheet for it. That’ll tell you how long to wait for all the steps. I’d be shocked if any color ever said more than 24hrs before clear. My basecoat is 30min to tape or clear.

You are probably hosed. I’d bet it will all lift and crinkled the second you apply some clear. At a minimum, the clear prob isn’t going to stick without sanding and reapplying color

Maybe someone mixed the can wrong. Maybe you applied way too many or way too heavy coats. Maybe the color activated your primer and the whole thing is soft.

 

[PrincessFalafal]

What SherwinWilliams paint? [...] You are probably hosed.

I'm not sure, but I'll check on Monday. I had called the local SherwinWilliams automotive paint place and they said they don't mix rattle cans anymore, but the NAPA down the street from them uses their paint and they mix them. So that's where I went, and they didn't give me any additional info for the paint.

Really bummed to hear that I'm screwed. I spent the better part of two weeks stripping and sandblasting off the old stuff, really wanted to put the time and effort into doing it right.

 

[OaklandF4i]

What SherwinWilliams paint? You need the type and the spec sheet for it. That’ll tell you how long to wait for all the steps. I’d be shocked if any color ever said more than 24hrs before clear. My basecoat is 30min to tape or clear.

You are probably hosed. I’d bet it will all lift and crinkled the second you apply some clear. At a minimum, the clear prob isn’t going to stick without sanding and reapplying color

Maybe someone mixed the can wrong. Maybe you applied way too many or way too heavy coats. Maybe the color activated your primer and the whole thing is soft.

:thumbup agree with all the above as potential issues.

I've never used a rattle can system like your using, always automotive that had to mix catalyst and shot with gun. No pro at it, haven't done it in some years, but I would agree with above. If applied correctly color should be ready well within 24hrs, most I've done within an hour or so.

In addition, is there any instructions regarding temp for the system you are using? I know from my experience that temperature plays a massive role in my catalyst mixing ratio. 5-10 degrees difference can make a difference, the window can be narrow. So I always tried to wait for a good day in 75ish degree weather as my garage isn't heated or cooled.

 

[stangmx13]

i found the paint. Napa Martin-Senour Cross/Fire. CF215 is "CrossFire 3.5 Acrylic Enamel Mixing Clear". CA208 is "CrossFire Polycure A". others are colors. So maybe this is a single stage 2K paint that does not need clear. thats from MSDS files, but cant find anything on the Crossfire system. and of course, all of Napa's websites say "use with Crossfire system". wtf does that even mean.
https://media.napaonline.com/is/content/GenuinePartsCompany/870752pdf?$PDF$
http://s7d9.scene7.com/is/content/GenuinePartsCompany/870686pdf?$PDF$

unfortunately, i still have no idea why its not hardening. maybe it needs to be baked. maybe it needed way more polycure. maybe it needed to be used within 24hrs of mixing the can. "napa crossfire" shows up on some forums. but they are saying dry by 24hrs and max hardness in 7 days, which is normal for a 2K paint.
https://www.yesterdaystractors.com/cgi-bin/viewit.cgi?bd=pbwork&th=26817

heres a CrossFire spec sheet, but im pretty sure its the wrong one. dont start any paint job without one for all your products.
http://www.jackbyrne.info/Msds PDF/napa-cross fire.pdf

it sounds like the ppl at the Napa down the street dont know anything about paint. find a real paint shop. mine sells online and has never steered me wrong. the first time i went in there, i didnt even know about spec sheets. they also sell U-POL and SEM just like the sticky thread, which is what i used in my paintjobs until i bought a gun.
https://tcpglobal.com

2 weeks to strip? thats nuts. buy an orbital sander. they are $50 and turn a 3 day job into a 3 hour job.

 

[PrincessFalafal]

i found the paint.

2 weeks to strip? thats nuts. buy an orbital sander. they are $50 and turn a 3 day job into a 3 hour job.

I very much appreciate the work you put in finding this stuff. I didn't get a chance to go back to the store today, but I'm going to head over tomorrow.

I wouldn't think it's a 2k paint? My understanding of the term "2k" is that it's a two-component system that uses a chemical reaction rather than evaporation to cure the paint, and as such has a very limited "pot" life. I've got a couple cans of the 2k clearcoat from Spraymax, the stuff with the button on the botton that you have to push and then you have ~8 hours to use the can or else it all goes hard. I don't think this paint that I got from NAPA is like that.

As for the fairings, I did use an orbital for the places that I could. There was a lot of prior paint to get off and it almost instantly gummed up the sandpaper. The fender had been previously painted with crappy rattle-can truck bed liner, and the tail fairings were silver from the factory but them someone had primer'd over them and rattle-canned a dark green. The primer was on there very think and took ages to get through, I burned through a dozen sandpaper pads because they'd instantly gum up from the thick paint.

A lot of the time was also getting all the paint out of the crevices that you can't easily get a sander into. The sandblaster got it out but it took ages.

Also MotoGuild is on limited hours right now, so I only had narrow windows outside of work that I could work on it.

 

[Sharxfan]

I haven't done paint in a while but my first thought was you didn't add the hardener/catalyst to the paint I have never seen that stuff in a spray can before. Sounds like the high points were hit already.

 

[augustiron]

Sounds like an incompatibility issue between the existing paint and new primer/paint, or the primer and paint themselves.
Or
A timing issue between coats, usually you have to lay coats withing a specified time of each other. This is true for primer to topcoat as well as subsequent coats of the same product.
What's done is done now, it will not cure over time and if you want to fix it, you have to remove it all and start over.
You think you ate sanding pads before, better hit harbor freight, because you will gum them up in seconds sanding unhardened paint.
Sorry.
I've been there/done that.

 

[Sharxfan]

Couldn't he just use a stripper first to get the majority off first then sand? maybe if it didn't harden he could just use a plastic scraper to get it off....

 

[stangmx13]

a paint stripper would probably save time. the fairings should be ABS so they should be resistant some paint strippers.

I very much appreciate the work you put in finding this stuff. I didn't get a chance to go back to the store today, but I'm going to head over tomorrow.

I wouldn't think it's a 2k paint? My understanding of the term "2k" is that it's a two-component system that uses a chemical reaction rather than evaporation to cure the paint, and as such has a very limited "pot" life. I've got a couple cans of the 2k clearcoat from Spraymax, the stuff with the button on the botton that you have to push and then you have ~8 hours to use the can or else it all goes hard. I don't think this paint that I got from NAPA is like that.

ya you'd definitely think that. but ive learned to not underestimate someone else screwing up :laughing:cry

 

[dravnx]

There's gotta be a shit ton of SV650 plastics on fleabay.

 

[DannoXYZ]

Find out what went wrong first before trying it again.

How much flash time did you give it between each layer? Was it dry to touch before next coat? As a control-test, spray some on bare-metal and see if it dries.

1. if it does dry, then there's some incompatibility with layers underneath. Personally, I never use adhesion-promoter on top of plastics. The solvents in paints tend to soften it up just fine.

2. if it doesn't dry, they messed up mixing paint for you somehow. Bring it back with your spray-test sample and get refund.

 

[PrincessFalafal]

An update for those curious:

I took the paint and a sample of my plastics back to the NAPA that I had them mixed at, and after a little bit of tense back and forth with the paint guy he dug into the records and admitted that they'd mixed the bottles wrong. Apparently the formula was long enough that it was on two pages, and they hadn't noticed to scroll to the second page to see the final component which was a hardening agent.

They mixed me another two cans of paint, and gave me a couple more cans of primer. They offered me some sandpaper too, but none of the stuff they had would fit the sanders I have access to. Oh well.

I'm frustrated that I have to go back and re-do the entire processes of sanding and stripping the plastics down, but there's a part of me that is happy that I'm not just crazy or was doing something wrong.

The downside still is that the store couldn't provide me with any information on application instructions. They said they had nothing in their system, only some instructions for use with a spray gun, so I'm hoping it's similar enough to most other acrylic lacquer which is usually pretty forgiving with recoats. I'd welcome any specifics that anyone else could dig up, but I haven't had any luck.

 

[Sharxfan]

Glad to hear it was a shop mix up and not something you did on your end. Sucks you will have to redo the parts but maybe it will come out even better this time around as practice makes perfect.

I am surprised you can't find anything or did you mean you can't find anything about aerosol application versus paint gun?

 

[Tom G]

I would get some plastic part of similar material and paint that before you touch your parts again. That way you will see if you like the final result and don't waste time and effort. An empty yogurt cup or soda bottle will probably do.

 

[dravnx]

Have you checked prices of used plasticss?

 

[stangmx13]

too bad you didnt get a refund. there will still be a lot of guessing without a spec sheet.

is the paint single stage or 2 stage, ie do you need to put clear over it?

+1 to shoot a test panel.

 

[rob linders]

Maybe see if you can use stripper that NAPA gives you for your trouble? I presume stripper would be easier?

 

[PrincessFalafal]

I would get some plastic part of similar material and paint that before you touch your parts again. That way you will see if you like the final result and don't waste time and effort. An empty yogurt cup or soda bottle will probably do.

There's one specific individual peice that's about the size of a deck of cards, so I'm going to do as much testing as I can to it before I do everything else. Yogurt cups and the like aren't going to be the same type of plastic, so the adhesion promotors likely won't have the same effect.

 

[PrincessFalafal]

Maybe see if you can use stripper that NAPA gives you for your trouble? I presume stripper would be easier?

Haven't found reliable information on which strippers wouldn't also dissolve the plastic. MEK and Acetone both will.

too bad you didnt get a refund. there will still be a lot of guessing without a spec sheet.

is the paint single stage or 2 stage, ie do you need to put clear over it?

+1 to shoot a test panel.

Maybe I could have gotten a refund if I asked, but either way I still need paint. The color coat is (I believe) a single stage that is has clear integrated into it. However I still want to do a 2-component urethane over the top of it for durability and chemical resilience.

Have you checked prices of used plastics?

These were used plastics. Difficult to find in my specific color.