Clear things up for me!

[Yukon]

I am just getting ready to shoot the paint on my 1985 RZ500 stk restoration and it looks like there was only clear on the tank over the decals, I am just looking for confirmation that this is the case.Clear or not clear on the body work?
Thanks guys,
Chris

[Dale R Murphy]

You are right. Clearcoat only on the tank, over the decals. Besides making the tank pretty, the clearcoat was to potect the decals from gasoline.

[Duca]

You are right. Clearcoat only on the tank, over the decals. Besides making the tank pretty, the clearcoat was to potect the decals from gasoline.

Dale, Hope you are well.

I was just wondering why only to clear the tank? Do any of you guys clear the other plastics.

[Dale R Murphy]

Hi Duca. Doin' fine. The clearcoat on the tank was to protect the decals and paint from the ravages of gasoline. I imagine that clearing the rest of the bike would be pretty nice but I don't know if the decals would take the clearcoat very well.

I would assume that the decals on the tank would not be made from vinyl as they would repel paint or react to it by shriveling.

I am not a chemist so i would need to defer to someone who knows. Anybody?

[MC]

Yukon, I think if you were to order the stripes from Yamaha the blue tank decal is cut from the same sheet of blue transfer as the others on the bike , clearing over the stripes with a good urethane clear should not be a problem just make sure the stripe has been wiped down with wax and grease remover prior to clearcoating the parts.. I would recommend clearing all the parts, the bike will all match and it will be a way more durable finish unless your going for that exact factory restoration and going to make her a garage queen .......Take care

[Froth]

You have to be sure of your paint systems though. 2k enamal is not designed to be clear-coated, acylic lacquer is. I will be painting my tank in the near future with base-coat lacquer and clear; and the fairings in 2k enamal.

[smurph]

I cleared over all of the decals. Like MC said, you have to make sure that the decals are clean. Then you make a rather dry pass over the decals with the clear. This puts a coat on top of the decals that is not laden with solvent. You don't want a wet coat of clear to make the color of the decal run out. After that "dry" coat is indeed dry, put finish the whole part with a wet coat and sand. I put three coats of clear on mine, block sanding between them, for a super slick finish. You can't tell that the decals are decals. They look painted on! Of course, the quality of the decal is important here. The thinner the better because you really don't want 18 coats of clear on anything.

The finish on my bike is waaaaaaaay better than stock, IMHO. I'm quite pleased with the results.



Steve

[Grumpy]

Hi Smurph,
Whose decals did you use? Did you clear coat with 2-pack or cellulose?

[smurph]

I used the decals from http://www.reproductiondecals.com. After trying decals from other sources that were waaaaaaay sub par, I found these to be of top quality. If you get the complete set, you even get the ignition decals! I really can't say enough about this company. They were easy to deal with and my decals arrived from Canada to the US in a matter of days.

But still, applying decals is a tough job to get right. I'm glad I got the first low quality kits to practice with. I found the higher quality decals to be easier to apply because you can massage them around curves easier. But if you mess one up, the Reproduction Decals people will sell to the decals individually. After practicing with my crap decals, I was able to apply the good decals with no mistakes.

I used regular urethane spot clear, nothing fancy. I'll get the make and model when I get home.

Steve

[rztom]

Hey Grumpy - welcome to the group..!!