Can this be done?

[Phred]

'Tis a pity India's so far away, because the lad who pintripes the Enfield tanks would knock that out in his teabreak for norra lorra dosh.

Didn't somebody post a video of that lad from India a few years ago doing the pinstripes? That was just incredible!

[Rich82GS750TZ]

Bah, doesn't look that difficult.

[nvr2old]

Amazing talent. Check out the lady doing the BMW stripes, too. No measurements, nothing, just skilled eyes and hands. It takes me hours and hours to measure mask and spray stripes to accomplish what they do in just a few minutes by hand.

[metalfab]

In the 80's and 90's I had a local guy who would come to my shop and pinstripe any of the paint jobs we did. I was in awe watching him work. $50 + materials wasn't bad.

[argonsagas]

Thanks to all for your input. I appreciate everyone's cautionary tone about the sanding. That was actually never an option for me. Fine sanding an entire gas tank without getting into paint is way beyond my skill set. What I was hoping for was some sort of miracle solvent that would take the clear and leave the paint the way the gasoline did. I do not have the balls to soak the rest of the tank in gasoline for a few hours to see what would happen.

Here are a couple of before/after sets where the only thing I did was flick away the peeled clear with my thumbnail. I could live with the paint part appearance wise. That still leaves the striping and some sort of clear protective coating for where the clear flaked off.

I could not find my bike (81 850) among Diablo's decal offerings. I would cut my own strips if I could find some tape close in color. Failing that the only option would be to try to match it with a paint mixture.



...

K I S S method


A striping pen or nail polish.
Perhaps nail polish in a striping pen.

I have never used the pen, but i have used nail polish many times.

It comes in many colours, shades and hues, and you can blend them to get any result you wish.

It will usually fade over time, but you can put clear coat on top to seal it, to limit/prevent sun damage.


.

[Dablaze]

Hi,

Sorry to jump in without an intro, I will do that next (Hi) just figured I could help out here. I have worked in sign painting/Pinstriping and been a reseller of vinyls in the sign industry most of my life.

Most strippers do custom work. Pinstriping is not a restoration game for the most part, it’s more personalization.

For the purposes in this post, after the clear is feathered (super carefully) the Pinstriping tape many have mentioned can be used to create a mask then the tanks covered with paper. However the easiest way for a layman or home repair guy to paint this would be to take the tank to an automotive paint supplier, ask him to match the stripe Color then create a spray bomb in that Color. Do the masking, spray the Color, then clear coat as suggested earlier.

hints to give the paint supplier…the fact that gas affected your stripes and clear but not the base coat. They should be able to get it from there.

Hope that helps!
Craig

[oldGSfan]

I know you're issue is the stripes mainly but bear with me, maybe it is of some use.

I got a pretty sad looking set of bodywork to come up OK by wet sanding with 1500 I think, then using SpraMax 2k which is catalyzed by a button on the bottom when you are ready to use. It is urethane and has pretty decent fuel resistance from what I've read anyway. It's about $20 but a can will do all bodywork so it's worth it. It lays on easy and seems tough as nails. I then wet sanded the clear coat with 2000 then 2500 grit, and used my orbital buffer on it with Macguiar's cutting compound and polish, and finally wax. It sounds intensive but took me about 2 hours of labor overall to do tank, side covers and tail section. I could have done better but wasn't thinking it would improve so much (d'oh!).

I didn't have the stripe delaminating problem but mine are a bit chippy here and there. I wonder if you could somehow sand carefully enough to peel them off with a razor and possibly use something to soften them like Goof Off, and then get some repro stripes to clearcoat in. It's not that hard to do the sand/spray part, and would cost under $100 I think for the stripes and chemicals. Considering how crusty it looked to start, it's a good rider/10 footer now. If I were after super good I'd just farm it out, I don't have the skills.... yet.

Oh, PS I didn't even color sand and buff the tail section, I must have laid the clear better as it was nice and glossy, the other parts weren't as good. It looks OK to me for now anyway.

[grcamna2]

oldGSfan/Tom,the paint work and clear came-out very nice on your GS1000 here.

[dpep]

I got a pretty sad looking set of bodywork to come up OK by wet sanding with 1500 I think, then using SpraMax 2k which is catalyzed by a button on the bottom when you are ready to use. It is urethane and has pretty decent fuel resistance from what I've read anyway. It's about $20 but a can will do all bodywork so it's worth it. It lays on easy and seems tough as nails. I then wet sanded the clear coat with 2000 then 2500 grit, and used my orbital buffer on it with Macguiar's cutting compound and polish, and finally wax. It sounds intensive but took me about 2 hours of labor overall to do tank, side covers and tail section. I could have done better but wasn't thinking it would improve so much (d'oh!).

Did you by chance have a section of the bike where the the old clear coat was still present and the new went over all or some part of it?

i have seen that SpraMax 2k mentioned favorably on my information searches.
...

[GS1100GZ]

I seem to remember seeing some stripe kits on eBay recently. You might to want to give that a try.

[dpep]

Progress Report

After considerable wrong gue$$ing I found a vinyl color that while not an exact match is close enough for my needs. Fortunately for me my sister is into crafts and has software and a vinyl cutter to cut out the exact widths needed. Otherwise I would have wasted a lot of vinyl with clumsy attempts at cutting right size even strips with an X-Acto knife and a straight edge.

So now after a little work on the gold stripe and some clean and polish I will be ready to spray the clear. My challenge is to find something that will blend seamlessly with the 41 year old clear that remains on the top part of the tank.

Something I am wondering is if I can skip the clear and just go with regular application of one of the ceramic based "waxes." They read to be protective against many of the same things as the clear including UV, probably my biggest concern. Has anyone had any experience with those products?


...

[nvr2old]

If you plan to use a polyurethane clear, like a can of 2k or with a gun, there really isn't a way to blend it. It basically "wraps" a paint job. There will always be a dry line if not sprayed completely. I would scuff the entire surface of the tank (stay away from the stripes) with 800 wet and dry paper, and then just do the whole thing. Much easier in the long run. The tank looks pretty good the way it is, though. Never used the ceramic products you mentioned. I've heard that it protects paint really well, but it's not going to do much to protect the re-taped areas from future peeling possibly.

[salty_monk]

Yeah do this above.... I've done that with tanks and a can of 2k clear on a handful of occasions. Always with good results. O'reilly do gold pinstrip.... Good luck