Harley Davidson Paint.

metalman

metalman

Oldtimer
I'm painting a fender and fairing and they ordered the paint from the dealer. It's all acrylic urethane topcoat, pearl over black. Not what I was expecting, thought it would be urethane base and I wanted to use inter-coat clear to work the pearl to match. Would have been nice if they thought to order the hardener but not. The mix ratio is 8:1:2 and I'm wondering if I should use SPI clear hardener. The way I understand it the SPI clears are polyurethane not acrylic urethane. I do have some hardener for another paint that is acrylic urethane. The Harley paint reminds me of old House of Color candy which was tinted top clear, never liked it, too much build up.
Everything is ready, surfaced with SPI epoxy. Plan to seal with reduced epoxy, shoot colors, clear with SPI. Wet sand and reclear if it gets peely which I think is going to happen with all that pile up of top coat material.
Anyone sprayed this stuff?
 
DONT DO IT! dont use the paint. you need to do a color match on it in real basecoat. hd paint is terrible. if you have the right cat for it then its ok for a single color job that is just sprayed and you walk away from but your spraying single stage. i have never know anyone to spray it and clear over it and not have the clear peel off 6mos down the road. if i was you i would hand them back their paint and charge them to do a custom match on it OR just walk away from it. its just not worth it.
 
Jim
Just from the ratio, 8:1 I thought this was junk. I doubt this is what the factory uses to paint with. But they prefer to sell replacement parts already painted at steep prices. The problem here is the mid coat: "merlot sunglo" which is the pearl over the black base. On the bike I see red, and some green in it depending on the light.
I'll have to check with some guys I know here with mix stations to see if we can match the pearl, the local supply outlets are useless.
Thanks for the heads up.
 
acrylic urethane cost me a fortune in the 70's . every repair would blow up in your face. was junk then and still is today .
 
If I could believe internet info (not referring to this site), I came up with a PPG code 927490 for the merlot sunglo pearl coat. I think this bike is a 2012.
Anyone here have a PPG system and can verify that code? If it is correct it would save a bunch of trouble trying to get it shot with the scanner, mixed, spray out etc. and use real base material.
 
ppg's codes and matches are usually right. any ppg jobber should be able to look that up and mix it. thats a common color for harley. just an fyi i believe ppg makes all harley's colors but the clear coat from what i am told is powder....on metal parts. your right though. that is not what they use in the factory. its complete garbage. i cant tell you how many painter friends call me and ask me about harley paint that the customer gave them. i tell them to walk away but somehow they dont or they are already into the job. i have never known a single person to make any money on the job using it because the whole job blows up in their face somehow and becomes a nightmare.
 
I have used Harleys acrylic urethanes a couple times. I don't like it but I made it work. Both times were over SPI black base. I activated the black and sprayed a couple coats and let it sit over night. First job was coloma gold.... a heavy flake...had to spray through my 1.8 primer gun. I did not activate it but I reduced it. I let it sit over night and cleared in the morning......4 coats of universal.....no problems and that was 3 years ago. Second job was Harley mysterious single over SPI black. I sprayed the black acttivated to sip specs and let it sit over night. Next day...almost 24 hours...I sprayed 3 coats of mysterious sunglo . I mixed it 8 parts paint 1 part SPI universal slow activator and about 3 parts reduced. You can't clear right away...I actually waited 2 days. Cleared with 3 coats of universal and it looks great
 
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