[ work 4 ]
Black. I have always been partial to the rat bike look so that will be my direction.
I found a black tank with a decal I liked that needed a little work. Cleaned it up, fixed the dings and dents, masked, painted, sealed and mounted. It wasn't the decal I was after but it will do until I can find a replacement. I painted the fenders to match. I now have a satin black bike. Slowly but surely we're getting there.
I found the tank decal I had been looking for - a 1911(?) waterslide reproduction. Gold with red trim - perfect. I found another tank to strip down for my new decal and began the prep work. No hurry, I have my tweener tank working - or so I thought. It started leaking real bad all of a sudden in the back corner so I had to pull it and put the original tank back on. Now I had a two-tone black and maroon bike. Time to talk to a painter.
I took my tank to a paint shop for black paint and a flat-to-satin clear coat. Problem was that they had never done waterslide decals before (seems everyone uses vinyl these days). I told them I would work with them and apply the decals to the tank. Well, when it came time to put the decals on the tank a crowd had gathered to see how it was done.
I was a little nervous as the decals weren't cheap, were hard to find and it has been years since I've done any of this work. Long story short, they came out fine and look great. The final clear coat is just a little flatter than I wanted but the dulling agent in the clear is a guessing game. Anyway, new tank and decal are on the bike and I really like the look. To each his own.
Since this I have added a lay down plate and taillight. A cramp buster for the throttle has come in pretty handy, too. I'm still looking to add forward controls and change the headlight to a bottom mount 7 inch and remove the brow.
Since writing this I have had to replace a fork seal. The original had disintegrated and had distributed trash throughout. Survived the repair. I found a 2 inch pvc coupling makes a great seal seater and tube cap seater.