Well, the wife is probably none too happy with me for spending the majority of the weekend on this, but it paid off. I was able to get all the tins removed, stripped, sanded, primed, painted and reinstalled. I was even able to add back the items that were never on the bike since I've had it (Sissy bar, Brake Light, License Mount). I think it turned out pretty well, it was a base coat of dark blue glossy & flat black accents.

Tell me what you think...

Primed:


Base Coat:


Front Fender complete:


Re-Assembled:





Off the stand and ready to ride  





Sorry for the cell phone pics, but that's all I had handy when I got done @ 11pm Sunday night. Looking forward to finally getting to ride it this week!!!

And if you don't remember, here's what she looked like when I started...

I'm digging the 2-tone!!!

very nice! it looks really good! if u can't find shocks for the back, maybe put springs under the seat! i love that and can't wait til i yank off the rear seat and do it!

but what a difference man! and your wife will be happy now that people won't think you're a murderer with the spider bike! lol

Boule’tard wrote on 07/27/09 at 07:47:32:


Good question, I hadn't thought about it yet.   I'm gonna let it "bake" in the sun for the next week of so to make sure the paint is fully cured before I go putting anything on it. If anyone has any suggestions though for protecting the paint, please let me know.

Very nice, I love the way it turned out.

EJID wrote on 07/27/09 at 09:04:23:


In general it is a good idea to let paint cure for two weeks before waxing, if you want to go that route.  Clear coating isn't a bad idea if you don't mind losing much of the "flatness" of your black areas.  

I recently painted a plastic dirt bike part flat black, and wanted to protect it without clearcoat (which I figured would chip) or pasty-white wax.  So I just sprayed it with the 303 stuff. I think I got it from wholesalemarine or some other boating outfit.  So far it has held up well, despite all the thumpin' vibration.  The part buzzed like crazy before I found a way to dampen it.. if I had to do it over again I'd just spray it with truck bed liner.

from a sow's ear,.. to a silk purse....

Very nice!....

Thanks for all the comments, I'm just glad I finally get to ride it  

odvelasc: I sprayed all the tins blue and let them cure in the sun for about 5 hours, rotating them on a regular basis so that the whole thing got nice and toasty.   I brought them back in the house and let them cool back down before I masked of the areas that I wanted to keep blue with regular blue painter's tape (in hindsight, it would have been much easier to make the curves and such with a cheap roll of pinstriping, but I took my time and got them just how I wanted to). After establishing the "lines" of where I wanted to keep the blue, I covered the rest with the blue tape and sprayed on the black.
I did a few coats of the black in less than an hour and about 30 min later, I carefully peeled off the tape (seems the flat dries to the touch within about 10 min with such light coats). Then I let everything bake in the sun for another few hours.
Around the gas cap you can see in the blue picture of the tank that I put several strips of tape going from inside the tank to just outside making a small cone. I hope I don't have any issues with the paint bubbling around the cap, but we shall see   now you've got me worried about something else that I didn't predict.