I should have taken photos thru this process, but I mainly wanted to share a few things about PRODUCTS for the Ducati matte black finish and repair.
I was able to pop out most of the tank dents with Pops-a-dent (available at autoparts stores or Amazon.com). this takes patience. The metal tank on my 2005 M620 is very thick, so I had to do it maybe 20+ times to get one dent almost completely out. The other dent did not come as much as I liked. I used Bondo Gold and finishing glaze to sculpt the tank back into shape.
I did it the lazy way, I only had damage on one side. I removed the decals and left the tank on the bike. I just used a sheet and painting tape to protect other side of tank and bike. Plan for overspray to also feather in the finish. Read up on feathering the edges / layers of bondo and primer so the finish is smooth.
The paint was
http://colorrite.com/product/ducati-...black-2095.cfmThe eggshell clear coat was
http://www.colorrite.com/product/aer...t-kit-1008.cfmColorrite sent me the wrong product - gloss clear coat KK7 instead of KK8 so double check the product code so you avoid that nightmare.
RESULTS
The paint matches perfectly. As a matter of fact, if I had stopped with just the paint, I doubt anyone could detected the repaired side of the tank. I believed I needed the clearcoat however for protection (and based on the requirements stated on the Colorrite site)
The aerosol kit for the eggshell clear is basically useless unless you go through the process I will detail in a moment. The sprayer comes with different size nozzles. The mid-size one (installed when you get the kit) put out too big of droplets which spatter the tank and will find their way to the feather area leaving splatter you would have to fix/sand later. The small one puts out a very fine/atomized mist - I believe it partly dries before it hits the tank. This leaves you with a milky haze with a very rough texture which in no way resembles the existing clear coat on the other side of the tank. Picking the lesser of two evils, I went with the milky haze option. This requires many coats as very little product is applied with the small nozzle.
To get as close of match as possible, wet sand the dry clearcoat with 800-1000 grit wet sanding paper (or pad), then sand again with 2000 grit pad. This will get it very smooth, but it may still look a bit milky.
Important step is to POLISH the area with a non-wax polish like NuFinish, Finish 2000, F21 or whatever you like. I used NuFinish, but I assume other products will work fine.
Unless you really examine the reflective nature of one side vs. the other, it is hard to tell the difference now. The repair side has a little more reflection, but is still matte.
This is my experience, there might be better ways to accomplish this however.
