Color Rite Experiment

[c3po]

Greetings boys and girls. Ordered some paint from ColoRite on Monday to see what kind of results I would get from using this product on a helmet. Been wanting to color match the helmet to the bike, and thought I'd finally do it.
I received my order yesterday (Thursday). I ordered the 12oz. spray cans of the respective coatings. Primer, base coat, top coat/color (Kawasaki Vaquero Green) ((the fastest color)) and urethane clear.
The pictures, as of this posting, are only for the prep job on helmet, prime job, and final coat of the base coating. As I go along, I will post finished product.
Hope this helps anyone looking to try the Color Rite route.
I masked the edge of the helmet with regular masking tape. I then stuffed an old Tshirt into the body of the helmet to provide support for the masking paper I used. The first picture is the helmet sanded down after removing the factory coating. Which was a thin rubbery sort of substance. I used 220 grit sandpaper, to remove this layer. Followed by 600 grit wet/dry sandpaper dipped in water. The second is the thing primed. I thought CR brand primer was expensive, but bought it anyway because I wanted to adhere to CR's claims that their primer was tested on that paint and thus would render the intended results.... yada yada ANYWAY. The third picture is the very first layer of the base coat. Which to my surprise was (as the picture portrays) green. I was under the impression that the base coat would be a silver metallic, and the top coat then would be the determining color. This 'base', although it cannot be appreciated in the picture, is indeed a metallic base. Just green as opposed to being silver. The last picture in the posting is the helmet after about 5 layers of base applied. The color intensified with each additional layer. Also, the 'flake' in the base intensified as well. Which is why I ended up using the number of layers described. I feel that, as is, I could just spray the urethane clear, and I would be happy with the results. The color match however is another issue. I'll have to wait for sunshine before I apply the actual color. CR's instructions are that the color be experimented with in bright sunlight. This way better color match results can be achieved.
Stay tuned!
Picture 5 shows the color matching achieved. So clear is next!
Applied the final coat. The clear coat. Let it sit for an hour or so, then I thought to put it on the dash of my truck. While it sits in the sun. Figured this would be a great way to 'bake' the paint. Here in Florida the sun gets pretty hot. Even in March! It's hotter and drier in the truck, than sitting in garage, or outside somewhere. The humidity levels are also pretty high down here and that has a very bad effect on paints. As a result I did all the painting in the garage. It's hot but far less humid than outside.

[c3po]

I am very pleased with the color matching results of this product. I've already gone ahead and ordered another can of BASE color to paint my wife's helmet. (She already asked me if the one I was working on was hers. To which I replied 'no honey, I'm experimenting with mine, so your comes out better') ;) I had enough primer, top coat (Kawasaki Green), and clear left over to do the other helmet. I used up the entire can of base paint. So it looks like I will have painted two helmets for about $160 with matching paint. I feel that's a pretty good deal.

Off to prep another helmet!

[VulcanE]

Looks like it turned out pretty good.