Hey Cowpuc

[Squidley]

Just to fill you in a little better on the Navy vernacular about what I did in Uncle Sam's yacht club. An aviation structural mechanic, better know as a metal mauler (hence the 2 crossed hammers), the job duties were the repair of all the exterior flight surfaces of aircraft. All the interior subframe structures, and on helicopters, which I repaired for 4 years, all the blades and flight control cables and that sorts. Here is what my rate badge looked like. I also learned how to professionally paint compliments of Uncle Sam and the American taxpayer.

[cowpuc]

11 minutes ago, Squidley said:

Just to fill you in a little better on the Navy vernacular about what I did in Uncle Sam's yacht club. An aviation structural mechanic, better know as a metal mauler (hence the 2 crossed hammers), the job duties were the repair of all the exterior flight surfaces of aircraft. All the interior subframe structures, and on helicopters, which I repaired for 4 years, all the blades and flight control cables and that sorts. Here is what my rate badge looked like. I also learned how to professionally paint compliments of Uncle Sam and the American taxpayer.

THAT is AWESOME!! Thank you Brad for your service and thank you for the schoolin!!  Tip is tugging on my arm to take her out for our daily 2 mile walk (doctors orders - my heart, her colestoral) BEFORE it gets dark here in Michigan but I got some thoughts rattling around in my head (as usual) concerning the matter.. Be right back!! Puc

[Squidley]

3 minutes ago, cowpuc said:

THAT is AWESOME!! Thank you Brad for your service and thank you for the schoolin!!  Tip is tugging on my arm to take her out for our daily 2 mile walk (doctors orders - my heart, her colestoral) BEFORE it gets dark here in Michigan but I got some thoughts rattling around in my head (as usual) concerning the matter.. Be right back!! Puc

Git after it son! Ask all the questions you want, we'll leave the lights on for ya 👍

[cowpuc]

Walked down by the Silversides submarine which is parked in the channel, snowing like crazy (hope WWW Fool dont see that) down there!!

So Squid, you say you learned to PAINT in the Navy? Is that like with a roller brush or stuff like air brushing? You ever do any 3 part painting?  I did numerous restores of real early Honda Mini Trails years ago (GOOD business!! Big $ items!!) - back in the day (late 60's) Honda used a three part paint system on their bikes,, they did that to create the "candy" look with metal sparkle in the background of the color of the bikes..  I never ever ever learned to paint, although I did actually go to paint school (air brush) at Sturgis one year in an effort to do some of my own painting on my Chopper mods and failed miserably at that too. For my Mini Trails (some of which went under glass in upscale business offices) I ended up hiring the work out.  It was not uncommon for my shop to end up paying over 1200 bucks just for paint work on a tiny little Mini Trail and most of that was due to having it "3 part painted" to look OEM.. Any of that make sense to you? 

You ever look closely at some of HD's paint work? I bought/sold numerous HD's thru the years, had a brand new left over 2001 Concord Purple Wide Glide that I sold to a guy in Jersey who owned a Dodge dealership there.. The bikes paint job was drop dead gorgeous (no body paints like HD IMHO) with inlaid gold emblems that looked 1/2 mile deep set into the paint.. The purple was obviously 3 part over silver cause wow did it sparkle on the base,, just amazing.. I have always had a hunch that HD learned this techinque for Honda back in the 60's.. What say you? 

[Squidley]

1 hour ago, cowpuc said:

Walked down by the Silversides submarine which is parked in the channel, snowing like crazy (hope WWW Fool dont see that) down there!!

So Squid, you say you learned to PAINT in the Navy? Is that like with a roller brush or stuff like air brushing? You ever do any 3 part painting?  I did numerous restores of real early Honda Mini Trails years ago (GOOD business!! Big $ items!!) - back in the day (late 60's) Honda used a three part paint system on their bikes,, they did that to create the "candy" look with metal sparkle in the background of the color of the bikes..  I never ever ever learned to paint, although I did actually go to paint school (air brush) at Sturgis one year in an effort to do some of my own painting on my Chopper mods and failed miserably at that too. For my Mini Trails (some of which went under glass in upscale business offices) I ended up hiring the work out.  It was not uncommon for my shop to end up paying over 1200 bucks just for paint work on a tiny little Mini Trail and most of that was due to having it "3 part painted" to look OEM.. Any of that make sense to you? 

You ever look closely at some of HD's paint work? I bought/sold numerous HD's thru the years, had a brand new left over 2001 Concord Purple Wide Glide that I sold to a guy in Jersey who owned a Dodge dealership there.. The bikes paint job was drop dead gorgeous (no body paints like HD IMHO) with inlaid gold emblems that looked 1/2 mile deep set into the paint.. The purple was obviously 3 part over silver cause wow did it sparkle on the base,, just amazing.. I have always had a hunch that HD learned this techinque for Honda back in the 60's.. What say you? 

The paints we used when I was in back in the late 80s early 90s was a 2 part epoxy polymide. This is when they started with the new tactical paint schemes. Our bird was still the gloss color and while on my Desert Storm cruise I ended up repainting the entire aircraft 1 section at a time. I have dabbled in some of the newer basecoat clear coats out there. I would love to make a living at doing custom painting, but that's not a realistic goal at this point in my life. Perhaps in the next life I'll get to be a custom paint guy 🤷‍♂️

Now that I've thought about it for a little bit, I wonder if Honda back in the 60's was painting with lacquer. Back in the day a lacquer paint job was one you did if you wanted a super deep look. As I understand the cure times between coats was very minimal and what they would do is paint it, wet sand it and paint over it again. They might have 10 coats of paint over it and the wet sanding inbetween would create the depth. Another trick I have used as well as some brothers who custom painted was put metal flake in with the pain and put a marble in the paint gun can to keep the metal flake suspended in the paint by swishing the marble around between spraying lines. 

Edited November 17, 2020 by Squidley

[Condor]

My first car was a '53 Ford 2-door.  Kinda in that mint green color.  Hated it.  After doing some leading and Bondo work I took it down to a local body shop to be painted metallic white.  Fords white was a off brown white unlike Chevy's blue white.  The painter couldn't find a metallic so he said he had a can of black metallic that he could add to the base.  I agreed.  What I ended up with was an off white grey in the shade and it would blow your eye-balls out in the sun...  I loved it.  Always wanted to do another but never had the occasion..

I also did a frame off restoration of a '69 Honda CB 750 sand cast.  Did that one myself in white lacquer.  You do not want fuel to drip on that stuff... Don't ask me how I know that...  🙂

[Condor]

I might also add Mecum had a 2020 Vette in white that acted the same way...  I wonder???

[cowpuc]

On 11/16/2020 at 7:38 PM, Squidley said:

The paints we used when I was in back in the late 80s early 90s was a 2 part epoxy polymide. This is when they started with the new tactical paint schemes. Our bird was still the gloss color and while on my Desert Storm cruise I ended up repainting the entire aircraft 1 section at a time. I have dabbled in some of the newer basecoat clear coats out there. I would love to make a living at doing custom painting, but that's not a realistic goal at this point in my life. Perhaps in the next life I'll get to be a custom paint guy 🤷‍♂️

Now that I've thought about it for a little bit, I wonder if Honda back in the 60's was painting with lacquer. Back in the day a lacquer paint job was one you did if you wanted a super deep look. As I understand the cure times between coats was very minimal and what they would do is paint it, wet sand it and paint over it again. They might have 10 coats of paint over it and the wet sanding inbetween would create the depth. Another trick I have used as well as some brothers who custom painted was put metal flake in with the pain and put a marble in the paint gun can to keep the metal flake suspended in the paint by swishing the marble around between spraying lines. 

It is very possible we are talking lacquer Brad BUT in all seriousness, I would not know one from the other.. I do know (ok,, take that "I do know" with a grain of salt cause I really dont) that the application back then for Honda's "Candy" paints was a base coat of an aluminumish looking paint,, it sort of looked like the engine paint that Honda, and others, used under the clear coat on the engine/forks and other aluminum parts.  I did mess around back in my restore days with a combination of aluminum wheel paint and clear coat that worked really well for the aluminum parts on those early bikes. According to the guy that painted a LOT of bikes for me, the process was the aluminum base coat, cured/dryed and then the color coat(s) lightly over the top of the base coat to give it the Candy look.. Than the clear coat on top to protect it, give it depth.  I may be incorrect but I think that was the 3 part process. I also know the "paints" were very expensive - like $400 for a small bottle. The genuis artist that painted for me could take a frame/tank/headlight/muffle guard and other tiny parts and paint them so well you literally could not tell the difference between OEM and his work = AMAZING!! IMHO, GOOD paint job = art form!!

 

21 hours ago, Condor said:

My first car was a '53 Ford 2-door.  Kinda in that mint green color.  Hated it.  After doing some leading and Bondo work I took it down to a local body shop to be painted metallic white.  Fords white was a off brown white unlike Chevy's blue white.  The painter couldn't find a metallic so he said he had a can of black metallic that he could add to the base.  I agreed.  What I ended up with was an off white grey in the shade and it would blow your eye-balls out in the sun...  I loved it.  Always wanted to do another but never had the occasion..

I also did a frame off restoration of a '69 Honda CB 750 sand cast.  Did that one myself in white lacquer.  You do not want fuel to drip on that stuff... Don't ask me how I know that...  🙂

Of all the SOHC 750's I went thru in all my Chopper builds and other's I put back out as restored, to my knowledge I only had 2 sandcast 750's. Jack, both of those bikes went out as "parts" because even just the engines were in the 15k retail bracket. I got involved with offshoring HD's to England thru a guy who did the same with Jap bikes going back to Japan.  He did a TON of Kawasaki 3 cylinders (both the 500 and  750's) 2 strokes and the early 900 4 stroke Z1  BUT I know he also did a couple bone stock sandcast 750's in with a container of bikes.  I am almost certain that he told me he got over 35k for each of them.. BIG MONEY!! 

Speaking of BIG MONEY bikes you lop eared varmints,, take a look what I found in the process of doing some research on Mecum auctions while looking for that bucket list Vette Tip is gonna let me own.. I thought this was wayyyyyy cool!!