Painting silver heads black?

[Reddog74usa]

Anybody have a way of painting the silver heads and cylinders black with the polished edges still on the edge of the finns? I was thinking of using H-D engine black then using a rotary sanding wheel on the edges of the fins to bring back the silver. What the best way to do this? TIA, RD

[Sonny S.]

Todd8080 did an awesome job on a set....even polished the fins.

hit him up on T H P

[Hillside Motorcycle]

SUMAX.com

[Flat Dog]

The polished/sanded edges will have to be coated somehow to prevent white rust...POR 15 glisten PC comes to mind.

Polishing raw fin edges constantly is a major PITA.

[Reddog74usa]

I couldn't find Tod in the members list. They can't be that hard to do maybe I'll check out sumax.

[mayor]

Todd's not on this site.  He's got his own site on MSN- ToddsHarleyPix

[longshooter]

I have done this a couple of different ways. One was to thoroughly clean the parts, mask as needed and spray using HD Black Wrinkle. The heat in the parts will cause the paint to wrinkle. Before the paint dries, I used a rag with thinner to wipe the fin edges clean. The second way is to clean and mask everything including the fin edges. Spray and before the paint dries, remove the masking from the fin edges. This eliminates the possibility of pulling off paint. Both methods have produced very good results and lasted years with no chipping or peeling with proper care.

Hope this helps.

Longshooter

[Mike52]

Steve, I've painted several sets of silver heads and jugs black with excellent, long lasting results. I use the HD Texture black engine paint in the aerosol cans. Cleaning the parts to remove all oils and film is very important, as in any paint work, the prep is most important, I use Zep brake clean that I buy in a 5 gallon drum. I mask off the ports, rocker box areas, combustion chamber and spark plug-head bolt circles with 3-M blue painters tape, then use an Exacto knife to trim the edges. To keep the fins clean, I use 3-M brand pin stripe masking tape, the blue colored type, it's the exact width of the fins. When spraying, don't get in a hurry, many easy, light coats is better than several heavy coats, plus the light coats dries quicker allowing you to paint the next coat quicker. With the light coats don't worry about getting everything covered on a single pass, you can come back and fill in the spots missed with a light coat. Keep going over everything until you have at least a couple of good solid coats of paint on, let it dry completely before handling. After removing the tape, if there are any spots of black paint on the fins, I use 0000 steel wool to clean the fins. Once the parts are installed on the engine, the first time you fire it up and get some heat in the heads and jugs, the paint will be set and cured completely. This has always worked for me. Here is a pic of a black head I taped up before fixing a broken fin, this is before trimming the tape and taping the fins. You can see the broken fin.

Mike



[attachment removed after 60 days by system]

[Bagger]

Anybody have a way of painting the silver heads and cylinders black with the polished edges still on the edge of the finns? I was thinking of using H-D engine black then using a rotary sanding wheel on the edges of the fins to bring back the silver. What the best way to do this? TIA, RD

Why not just paint the heads / cylinders totally black like the Harley Crossbones engine?

[Reddog74usa]

Thanks Thats what I was lookin for. The texture black does look good as I have used it to paint other parts.