I debated all week if I should wet sand some or all of the parts I painted last weekend. A few parts like the bridge and the horn cover came out excellent. But the floorboards, the panels and especially the front fender had lots of orange peel and rough spots. I worried if I wet sanded and shot the parts again, they would just look worse.
Also, I was not happy with the spray gun I was using. It was extremely hard to clean and I didn't fully understand how to dissemble it to get it clear of old paint and clear coat. So I spent $25 bucks on another type of sprayer on Amazon. It's a detail gun, which doesn't hold as much paint and needs to be filled a few times during a job. Yet it turned out to be much better than the first one --- it had an internal filter and it came with a brush to clean the paint can. I bought a bunch of paint thinner to scrub it down with after each use.
I decided to wet sand everything. I hit a bare spot on the front fender and dropped the headset while sanding it, nicking the paint, so I decided to re-shoot the headset and the front fender again with color just where the bare spots were.
I cleaned the hell out of the gun after the first use, and discovered how important that is. There was no initial jamming or uneven spray this time after repeated use.
The new gun really did perform better. Either that, or I finally got the hang of how the gun is supposed to work. The paint went on much smoother and there were no runs. The clear coat really covered and smoothed out the parts I had painted last weekend --- the panels now shine like mirrors.
Unfortunately, I ran out of clear coat. And I'll have to wait until the paint store opens next week to get more. I'll spend Sunday wet sanding the main part of the bike like I did the parts I shot last weekend.
The paint is looking like it's going to turn out way better than I thought.
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