step 5 - more sanding, better tool

So I got the rest of the tank done. I switched over to a RotoZip with a Nylon polishing pad and that seemed to do really well against the tank. I wouldn't be able to use that on the plastic parts because its too powerful for plastic, but it works great on metal.

I attempted to get the head piece sanded a little with the power sander but that just proved to be a hassle and not very effective.

Im gonna need that sandblaster to get that and the rest of those tiny hard to reach spots in the other plastic pieces.

We got some tougher grit media for the little sand blaster that we have here, so i'll try that tomorrow and see if that does anything.

Meanwhile, time to start on the designs. I've been putting that off and now its time to start messin' with it.

I got in some of the parts so Im excited to get them on. The spikd bar ends came in, I got the spiked windshield bolts, & the K&N Air Filter. Now I just need that new tail piece and I'll ve ready to roll.

Step 4 - is really still step 3, that's right.. sanding

I tackled the tank tonight. Not even all of it either. I'd post up a picture but my arms are too tired to lift any higher than the keyboard. I haven't touched any actual "work" work in a few days. I've been researching parts, checking to rent a sandblaster and over all just really busy with work.

So tonight I intended on tackling the whole gas tank with the sander. still using #60 Grit. I got it about half way done and had to stop for the night. My arms are killing me. (doesn't help I swam 30 some laps at the gym before starting the sanding)

It's really astonishing how well that pain is on there. If I didn't want to scratch it, I could accidentally drop a nickel on the tank and lay a scratch in it, now that I WANT it off, I am strong arming an electric sander to it and its taking for ever to even scuff it.

That's just gonna have to take up two nights, and then, I'll probably still need to do some hand sanding. Maybe I will have found a sandblaster by then.

I plan top call a guy named Danny Bally (Ball-ee) who has a shop nearby and does custom painting on bikes and some car hood s apparently. I'm hoping that he's nice and doesn't mind me picking his brain at all. We'll see.

I found out that the custom tail I ordered only came in red so I was almost set to order a new one and I found out that it comes apart really easy and that I can sand that down and paint that too. unfortunately, more sanding. sheesh.

I haven't really taken the time to sit down and sketch yet. I'm sorta procrastinating on that because I don't have any one complete design thought out yet.. which is asinine because I know that its gonna take sitting down and working thru it to do it, that's just my perfectionism putting me in a stranglehold right now. I'll work thru that soon. thing is that's probably my favorite part, other tan shooting pictures of it once its done.

ok I'm in too much pain to type anymore. more to come tomorrow.

Step 3 - More friggin sanding

I suspect that sanding will be the net 18 steps. holy cow. First you gotta sand to get all the paint all ground up and the glossy coat off and all the stickers off, then you have to come back again and sand a couple more times to smooth out the sanding that you just did.

I'm totally gonna check into a sand blaster and see if that doesn't speed this process up. There has got to be a tool that's better than a power sander for this crazy angled shit. if I have to hand sand that whole head piece, that's gonna SUUUUUCK! I can't even imagine.

I may also check into a local custom bike painting shop and see if they'd just do hat sand blasting for me and how much that is. There is a guy near the house that is supposedly pretty well known for custom paint jobs. I might see if he'd be wiling to chat with me and give me some advice as I go through this process. we'll see, he could be really cool, or he could be a jack ass and not want to share any info.

Here's a few more shots from today. I'm just continuing on with the same grit #60 and trying to hit as much of the pieces as I can. Today I did much better than last night, in 2 hours today, I did the other side panel, the front fender and the tail piece all in just a little longer than it took me to do the whole left panel yesterday. But now all the big areas are done and its time to get into the small shit. thus the break to find a sandblasting solution.

the side panel today made some really cool contour lines from the layers of paint. I really dig the effect.

Step 2 - Sanding

The next thing to do was to start prepping the body panels. which means sanding off the paint and getting it down to a paintable surface. I expected this to be a pain in the ass. But I thought with the power sanders that Pops has it would go by pretty fast. Yeah, not so much. That's still a bitch. It took me 1.5 hours to do one body panel last night.

I still had to muscle the sander pretty good, a lot harder than I expected. I also powder coated myself in red paint dust. Which sorta looks like you've been dusted by the pink fairy.

The Stickers are the hardest to remove that just takes a lot of working it. and then the angles, this bike has so many tiny little rounded corners and edges that its gonna be a bitch. I'm already dreading the front fairing, there's just no way to power sand that. I am thinking about going down to Daniel Barry's shop and seeing if he can sand blast it for me. Otherwise that's gonan take hours to hand sand down.

So far today I've ordered a bunch of parts, the new tail section, some bar ends, the new air filter, and some cool spiked windshield bolts to match the spiked bar ends. =)

Rather than buyign a new windshield Im gonna attempt to sand and flat back that as well and then maybe put on some design, like a skull or soem line graphics. Not real sure yet.

I've pritned out a bunch of line drawings of the profile of the bike I scanned in form the owner's manual so I can sketch out the paint job.

Here's a shot of the 1 sanded panel and the shelf of all the parts waiting for their de-skinning.

Step 1 - Dismantle

Well, I've got to have the bike parked for a little bit so to keep my mind off riding, I'm gonna tackle this project that I've wanted to do since I got the thing. Give it my own paint job so its 1 of a kind.

I've got a lot of ideas. No fully complete all around design mapped out yet so I'm jumping into this as I'm making things up.I'll be sketching and designing along the way, though. And making sure I commit to something before I start throwing paint down.

I've watched a series of videos on how to do custom paint jobs and learned a little about preparing the surfaces for paint and how the clear coating works and everything. My dad's done some painting before, nothing like this but at least has some experience with the tools, and that's REALLY handy.

I'm going to document what I'm doing the whole time so I can track what I'm doing and if anyone else wants to try to tackle this kind of thing maybe it can help them get started.

I'm looking forward to this project. I think it will be fun and definitely a learning experience.

I've got some before pics and a few of it taken apart.

The body panels come off real easy. The tank on the other hand was challenging. I had intended on driving the tank until it was empty , but didn't have a chance to do that so we got the tank off and then started letting the gas drip out from the place the hose connected to the underside of the tank. Turns out it goes through a filter and the gas pump for the fuel injection which is up inside the tank. After about 40 minutes or so we got tired of watching it drip and realized we had to take the bottom piece out anyway, we might as well try now so it drains faster.

So we started taking that off and removing the pump unit from the tank was like a Rubik's cube. You have to twist it and turn it just the right way to get it to come out of that hole. had the hole been about a half a centimeter wider, it would be been very easy.

The tail was also kinda challenging to get off because it didn't really want to bend the way it needed to to come off the back. I'm wondering it Im going to crack the paint tryign to get that back on. that's gonna be difficult I think.

Once that was off, the gas drained really fast, it now had a 3 inch hole instead of a pin hole.

Now the panels are off, so its surface prep time and sketch time to finalize the design choice.