Thread revival, I hope I don't annoy. I am buzzing with pride and joy over the work I just did the past few days...
I've been riding ol' Trumplestiltskin TONS. Other than an oil leak, the thing has been very reliable. Here's a shot from a Red Bull break today
So, remember that rusty little tank from the beginning of the thread? Well it was only horrible on the outside, and the inside looked pretty good. I bead blasted all the rust off and when I found some pitting I got lazy and went with another larger tank that wasn't going to require any finish work. The little tank sat in my garage all this time and in this past week I got a wild hair up my ass to finally do something with it.
A friend of mine had offered to get it finished because he was trying to start a painting business, so it had some filler and primer applied and removed. He gave up. His business failed. But this is what I started with last week...
I used aircraft stripper to get the layers and layers of old paint off of my bent up fender (free barn find) and then I trimmed off the bent and ripped ends. I wish I had welding powers so I could've filled the extra holes in it, but I hardly care. This is fun, either way...
I'll admit, I half assed this a little bit. I didn't even care enough to resurrect my fallen paint booth in the back yard, after a few years of mild weather turned it into a crooked tower of hobbies past. I just repainted my workbench along with these parts... I have no desire to have a super clean bike, I just have fun spraying paint and hanging out in the garage. I could have used bondo or something to fill some of the pitting a little better, but oh well. I used a few coats of filler primer, a thick and frothy product in a rattle can, like misting chocolate milk onto the surface of the tank...
After that was given a few days to dry I used 400 grit paper to wet sand it some, and then I hit the accent areas with a few coats of rattle can duplicolor red (my Hagon shocks are about the same color, that's why I went with it).
Once dried I masked off the accents. Lines are wobbly, but whatever. I ended up using some pin striping tape to put black wobbly lines over these wobbly lines...
The results were starting to look kind of clean
I lobbed on some clear coat
And then I added a slight amber tint to the clear coat and layered it a little bit heavier on the parts of the tank and fender that would naturally see more sun than the rest... I want this to look like an old bike, still. I come from a background of guitar making, and it's a common practice in that scene to make a brand new guitar look 30 or 40 years old, so it was fun to take that to a motorcycle... I don't know if that's lame. I just had fun with it.
Once that cures I'll wet sand and buff it. I can't wait to get these things on the bike- it'll feel like a whole new bike, I'm sure!