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I decided to crash Italian Car Fest with my Ducati… but I couldn’t do it with just a run of the mill Dark, I had some changes to make.

My girlfriend wouldn’t hesitate to tell you what my favorite color is. Most people would think that it’s boring, but when it’s unexpected it can make quite a statement.

This is what I had to start with:

In the back is my new seat cap, I’ll get to that later.

Sanding…

…very important

When you need to mask off a hole, it’s best to run the tape nice and taught straight across the gap like so:

It makes for a nice strong structure, as opposed to if all the tape was parallel.

This is one of the reasons I like doing this kind of thing

That raised edge always bugged me with the original part, it comes from surface tension in the original coating causing material to “pool” at the edge of a part.

It takes a while to get rid of it…

…as you can see I had to go through several layers of material before I reached the true low spot.

More masking:

I tried to follow the original mask as best I could.

A clear tube sanded to somewhat match the inside contour of the fender hot glued into place gives me a handle for painting.


Bolts in the bumper holes keep the threads clean and allow me to turn the part over without touching down what will soon be a painted surface.

The cups are there to act as the third foot, taped and hot glued.

So fresh and so clean clean




The clear coat will get just a touch of blue pearl so that it’s not quite so plain…

…blingy!




Through my job I’ve made some friends in the printing business, so I compiled some graphics and sent them off

It’s a printer/cutter so once it’s done, I can just peel them off…

…and they’ll be ready to apply

Looks kinda like a police bike…

…that wasn’t my intention, I’ve still got some ideas left.

It’s real easy to get the clear too thick and end up with stuff like this:

(My friend Chris knows all about this)

…but that’s why god invented sandpaper




Sadly I don’t have any pictures of it at the show because, figuring there’d be plenty of people taking pictures I didn’t bring my camera, and all the online albums of the show focus too much on the cars of Italian Car Fest… go figure.

I was waiting for the finished product. It looks like it was coming out perfect. How many coats of paint and clear(base coat/clear coat? Hand rubbed lacquer?)

Having dome some painting and body work I can appreciate your artistic manner in which you place your pieces to be painted. I really enjoyed your posting this process. Any chance of getting a finished photo? I can visualize it and it looks good in my kinds eye......

You’re getting ahead of me badinfluence63, I can’t show a finished pic till I explain all this.

Tails

Sure as hell doesn’t look like polished aluminum to me:


Never the less, this is what Ducati calls polish. Both my self and the guy at Ducati that sold it to me disagree, so I’ve again… got some work to do.

Oven cleaner loves anodizing, tastes great, less filling

(use in well ventilated area, wear gloves, etc.)

A prelim cleaning polish to see where I’m at:


See all that white junk at the edge…

…that’s what’s left of the anodizing, and it doesn’t polish worth a good god darn, so you need to get rid of it. I used some heavy grit sandpaper on a block.

A good polish will take you a while:

I like to go back and forth between polishing and sanding to make sure the surface stays nice and flat.


I resorted to a hand polish and finisher towards the end. Stuff like this makes all kinds of claims on how it preserves the polish and maintains it. I tend not to believe any of it. Polished aluminum will dull over time and needs to be freshened up now and again, if you can’t handle that, chrome it.







I’d like to do a little more polish, so I’m looking into making up aluminum panels to fit to the sides of the tank kinda like this:


I’ll let you know if I ever pull it off.

It's good to see you posting again.

You are so talented and it is very enjoyable to see what you do. The Ducati looks great.

Yeah the ducati looks great.

And every time I come read your blog I want to sell the GS and get an old CB to fool with.

Keep us updated.

You’re going to have to bear with me a little for this post, it’s a bit of a tangent.

You see I’ve been spreading myself pretty thin as of late what with my website that still needs a ton of work, my T shirt designs I’ve been working on, the fact the I’m very soon to be laid off (not sure what I’m going to do about that yet), and I just bought myself a truck/bike hauler.

Anyway I thought I’d spend a post gloating about my bike hauler

Found this:

On craigslist, and figured it’d be the perfect thing to use to promote my bikes and shirts and what I do since I’d like to eventually make some money with all this, especially seeing as my current job has developed an expiration date.

It’s been taking up a lot of space in my garage and my schedule…



…and teaching me new things




After practicing a little with the oils, I went out and got myself some real 1Shot paints and re-did everything



First time I’ve ever striped anything. It doesn’t help that the surface is pretty rough, but I’m slowly getting the hang of it.
hang of it.

AWESOME
Really good documentation. I like the little twin (well except exhaust raps) I am going to reread as I have a split in my fender and haven't worked with fiberglass in over 20 years.

You work and still have this much time! Got more energy than me.


And kids this is how we used to build choppers before custom parts were available.

Too be honest, I am now more interested in seeing what other "reading" material you have.

ceemes wrote:

Too be honest, I am now more interested in seeing what other "reading" material you have.

agreed...that was a tad...ermm...distracting...*lol*

Very nice work on the Duc....makes me wish I had some of that...whats it called...oh yeah! talent.

NorthernPete wrote: agreed...that was a tad...ermm...distracting...*lol*

Very nice work on the Duc....makes me wish I had some of that...whats it called...oh yeah! talent.

To plagiarize from the 70's rock band Sparks,

Talent is an asset,
And little Mysta has it.



sigh.....I look at Sabre and wish I had the talent, space, time and money to do right by her.