New Tank Paint

[MisterCinders]

My tank job is getting pretty close. The knee dents have a coat of bed-liner, but it ended up forgiving fewer prep sins than I anticipated. Taping the curves around those dents left a few too many corners as well. Here are some crappy phone pics of the current state of things:







If possible, I hope to gently sand down the bed-liner at the edges and work in a white stripe to set the dents off a bit. There are also some runs in the bed-liner that I hope will sand down like paint. We'll see.

[5azzmonkey]

Keep it the way you had it! It looked much better without the bed liner

-Dave

[MisterCinders]

Keep it the way you had it! It looked much better without the bed liner

-Dave

This is a second tank. So I can still go with the non pad look.

[pete]

I like it! Smooth those edges off and it should look great...

[Steve]

Good luck smoothing anything on the bedliner.

I know that Dogma has had some "fun" tryng to do work on his.

.

[MisterCinders]

Good luck smoothing anything on the bedliner.

I know that Dogma has had some "fun" tryng to do work on his.

.

No doubt that bedliner will be a bitch to work with. Pretty surprised that it ran on me, since I went VERY light and only mist coated that stuff, precisely out of concern that it might not sand out like a paint run.

To work out the edges, it should still be OK if I cannot truly level it out like a real paint finish. Even somewhat rough halo around the dark pad portion with some white paint could be a good transition from smooth yellow paint -> rough white border -> gritty bed-liner black.

Or I can dump a half can of stripper on the damn thing and start again for a 4th attempt on this tank.

We'll see.

[nvr2old]

Something to maybe consider would be to take some 1/8" tape and mask a nice smooth line around and as close to the bed liner edge as you can to make it look right and then spray it all black again right over the liner. Just a thought.

[MadCapsule]

What model bike is this new tank from? I notice it doesn't the locking gas cap door.

Or did you take off the door and fill in the recessed area?

[MisterCinders]

What model bike is this new tank from? I notice it doesn't the locking gas cap door.

Or did you take off the door and fill in the recessed area?

It's a 1977-78 GS750 tank. Ditched the fuel door and used bondo to fill in the recess and badge holes. Hammered in some knee-dents.

The bed-liner misadventure is behind me. Stripped it down again and will re-paint. The knee-dents wash out with all that yellow, so I'd like to set them off with some kind of paint scheme. Might try to pick up the purple/white in the stripe and paint the dents white with a purple border, if I can tighten up my masking techniques. Should probably just get some frisk paper.

Pretty stoked about my insignia idea. Since the color scheme is LSU (GEAUX TIGERS!), I will stencil "LSU" at the badge position, but use the Suzuki stylized "S" and make it slightly larger than the "L" and "U."

[MisterCinders]

Here is the latest iteration. Still need to tighten up the S with some white I think.

[ValorSolo]

I was browsing eBay, saw these and instantly thought of you.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/BSA-Motorcycle-Models-M20-M21-M33Petrol-Tank-Knee-Grip-Rubbers-/400298163955?pt=UK_Motorcycle_Parts&hash=item5d33a13ef3

[7981GS]

Here is the latest iteration. Still need to tighten up the S with some white I think.

Yuk.
I wouldn't want to be seen on it.

JMHO.


Eric

[MisterCinders]

Yuk.
I wouldn't want to be seen on it.

JMHO.


Eric

Then I'll not let you ride it.

I have gone through another iteration of the S design. But scrubbed that one as well for another attempt.

Been playing with how to set up the 'S' working with just tape. Stencils from the Michael's here are just cellophane without adhesive, and I didn't find any frisk paper.

Ultimately, I am working towards this in white with purple outline (to mimic the center stripe).

Here is another example with some outlining.

I would only go with 2 colors, however, not 3 like this image.

[7981GS]

Sorry, I deleted the pic from my Photobucket album. Didn't want it to infect the album.

[DannyMotor]

Oh noez!! EBAY... find a red suzuki decal... get rid of the LSU, decal the S in place... clear it... leave it.

Doing the LSU looks like you took an awesome custom bike and had a 15 year old child with down syndrome do the graphics. No offence if you did. My cousin has down syndrome... she loves to paint.

I do love the yellow and stripe... it looks 1000x better with the dents yellow.