Touch ups?!?!?!

[DaveinNM]

I'm painting a motorcycle tank and I am having trouble gettting everything right. I've had so many problems and have redone the entire tank 3 times. I'm using PPG paint, metalic black base then white flames. After I spayed the white I masked off the inside of the flames with 1/8 tape and did a reduced black around the edge to give it some depth and then a pearl over the top of the flames. I've had the base lift on me while removing the tape, I've tried to touch up the base when I had a little white on it but it ends up looking a different color than the original base can someone help?! Here is a pic of the rear fender, which came out great.

 

[TAZ]

Not for sure why it would lift up on you.
Here are a few thoughts though that might be the cause.

• Are you putting the base on too dry?
• Possibly you are putting on the tape too soon. (be sure and let it dry an hour or so before taping)
• Are you peeling the tape off too quickly

As far as the color not matching when you try to 'touch' it up. This is because the paint will spray different than it would when you touch it up. What you need to do is sand the bad area, mask it up, then spot in the area instead of touching it up. Try to use about the same pressure. If you try to keep the spot too small when spraying, it normally will come out brighter than the original.

Paint job looks great.
Be sure and take some 1500 with a white foam pad and 6083 compound over it. This will take a lot of the peel out and give it even more depth
:bigokay:

By the way, I use to put that "trailing flame" on all my jobs I did a about 5 years ago.
For awhile there, I was the only one that did it (that I knew of). I mainly did it since that is my first initial of my name "S" (got about 600 jobs out there like that).

 

[TAZ]

One other thought is maybe you are waiting too long to add more paint. There is an allotted time that you must have clear applied before you will start having adhesion problems.
Normally it's 2-48 hours. So if you applied the base, and doing more work with base a few days later, possibly this is the reason it's peeling.

 

[DaveinNM]

Thanks for the advice. I don't think its a time thing. I did the whole thing in one day. I waited about 90 minutes before I taped. I thought it might be temperature. The garage was around 80-85 degrees when I did it. I'm using a medium reducer, do I need a different reducer for the higher temp? Thanks
The trailing flame was sort of an accident, I didn't want to flame over the tail light but it looked to bare to just end it way up there. If you mask off for a touch up and are painting the same pressure, how do you not get an edge to the paint where the tape was?

 

[TAZ]

Medium should be fine. Possibly you just put both paint jobs on too dry?

You will get an edge anytime you do graphics. Once you clear it, and wetsand and buff it, this should take care of the edge.