Clear over bare metal??

[Driftwood]

Hi folks,
I am getting along nicely (but slowly) with my painting but have a problem, a mate has asked me to paint his Indian/Harley. It looks like a fairly simple job, I just need to be confident I can do a nice job for him!
Hopefully I have attached a pic of a similar paint job that I need to copy. It's a Crocker tank.
Half the tank is bare metal, then the other half is going to be orange with a thin gold pinstripe.

I thought I'd clearcoat the whole tank in it's bare metal state first ( maybe 3 or 4 coats). Let that harden & flat down with 800. Then I was going to mask off & paint the orange & then put the gold pinstripe on. Paint those over the clear then flat again with 800. Then re lacquer the whole lot in until I had lost the build up where the paint meets the (thinner) lacquered steel. Then buff.
Firstly I'm worried about putting clear onto bare metal? Then putting the orange & gold ontop of the clear. Do they all have to be the same based paints? ie, all cellulose or all polyester!
Can anyone talk me through it please. The design is easy but don't want it all to go wrong with a bad reaction between coats.
Could somebody maybe give me a rundown of the way "you" would go about doing the job.
I'd love to do it, it would be big confidence builder.

 

[TAZ]

Hello, welcome to the forum.

Sounds like from what I've read, the steps you have should work fine.
As far as what will be compatible over your clear...well, that's hard to say. MOST of the time you will be fine putting a regular basecoat over a clearcoat. BUT, I would suggest just doing a test panel on the side in which you clearcoat, then sand, then spray your basecoat over the clear to see if you would have any problems.

We use PPG and HOK, and both will work over one another.

 

[RobS]

Hello, welcome to the forum.

Sounds like from what I've read, the steps you have should work fine.
As far as what will be compatible over your clear...well, that's hard to say. MOST of the time you will be fine putting a regular basecoat over a clearcoat. BUT, I would suggest just doing a test panel on the side in which you clearcoat, then sand, then spray your basecoat over the clear to see if you would have any problems.

We use PPG and HOK, and both will work over one another.

Normal clear coat won't stick too well to a polished metal surface. POR-15 makes a clear that is designed to stick to polished metals and chrome. It's a two pack and it flows nicely and dries rock hard...doesn't chip easily.
Its called POR-15 'Glisten'

 

[shmajo]

The POR-15 Glisten clear works well but there is another option called Matthews Spray Bond. It is a bare metal adhesion promoter so that you can use any clear over top of the project. You may have to see if it is available from your PPG jobber or find a local outfit by google-ing it.