Thanks for the reminder.  Good tip.   I'll probabl bake this part for 45 minutes bare metal before wax/degreaser/primer combo.

I usually get a dribble and drool too. 

still working on getting the tank smoothed out. oil tank looking good..  btw, the right side as a VERY thin layer of skim coat to smooth it over a bit. 




 

I usually use the rustoleum etching primer, then add gray primer/sealer on top.  The gray primer has a nice wide spray pattern.

well, its looking smooth... 


oil tank looking good...


final coat of primer/sealer before paint...      


 

ok, now its officially a DT.   got the DEET vin sticker on it. put it on shifted to right.   how hard are these to peel off?  might have to go to backup sticker.

paint teaser...got a hair in the tank I have to get out.  bit more to go on it.  oil tank is looking as good as I could have hoped. I have not cleared anything yet, so
this is base coat only.  I DO NOT care for painting.  Next time, gonna hire out one of you guys.  Not my fav part of resto work. Getting that hair out of the
tank is gonna be fun maybe even another coat.

Oh an thanks MDScott for posting your paint selection.  Some other great ones on this site too.

1st coat of clear on fuel/oil tanks.   looks good.  pops brighter in sunshine.  going to let it dry 1 hour, decals, then coats 2 and 3, polish, wax.





this color changes w/light for sure.   hope to have finished pics soon.

Hi pabdt,  I've been following the painting part of your thread with considerable interest and have to say what a great job you've done so far. For a guy who admitted painting is not his 'thing' I reckon you have rattle can nailed it. Well done. Now get that hair off the tank, line those decals up really carefully and it'll be great to see it all finished when the final clear coats done. I have little experience of painting but as a result of seeing what you have done I'm going to have a go at doing my rear mudguard. It seems to me it's all about good preparation work and patience i.e. not rushing anything. Well done again, Andy.

well, mostly good, some bad.

Before 2nd coat of clear, after adding decals.  All looks normal. 



Add 2nd coat of clear, still normal.  Then after adding 3rd coat clear, some spidering in paint. Looks like I'm going to have to tape off the good part and repaint some of the center of the left side of the tank.  The right side was fine. 

3rd coat clear and in between the stripes.  Looks great!


3rd coat clear and left side, pic1 and pic2 about 20 minutes apart.  oil tank had same problem. 


if you look carefully, you can see the blue sky in the tank. 

Going to do the following.  wait until it hardens really well, then redo the shaded left side of tank.  I have plenty of base color.  Maybe I will get lucky and remove the top 2 clear coats.  The first one actually looked good.






 

Thought I would post a how to on applying the stripes.   There are probably other ways to do it, but I found this fairly easy.

1.  Wait until 1st clear coat has dried about 2 hours
2.  Remove backing to reveal adhesive.  Apply section 1 in the bend attaching lightly only a few mm of the strip.   Place the bend of the strip in an area that at least appears equa distant from the front and bottom of tank.  Don't worry so much about section 4 near the arrow.  That will be last.   

3.  Apply only a few mm of 2 by lightly depressing on decal leaving section 2a free slightly bent up.  

4.   Apply section 3 lining up white part of strip to section 2 and about 6mm under section 3.  It is recommended that at this time you only leave only remove enough of section 3 to attach to the tank, so you may practice the pattern across the top of the tank. 

5.  The next part seems a bit intimidating, but is not.  Remove adhesive off of top decal.  The best way to apply this is to make sure section 3 is aligned first. 
Do not try to bend, twist or stretch the decal laterally.  While holding the unapplied part of decal gently away from the tank, run the other finger over the decal
carefully making sure you don't apply direction to the decal. It will lay down exactly where it needs to go. 

6.  For section 4, Simply adjust 1 and 4 to align on each other. 

I also found that using 3M Contact glue, SMALL AMOUNT under the overlapping decal held it down nicely. .