No more black frame...

[Rupes]

Decisions, decisions....

I'm back, in case anyone here noticed my absence. I went over my limit on my broadband connection and they capped me for the last 3 weeks to 28.8 modem speed. Grrrr I didn't even bother trying coming here, I was getting like 1.5k a sec

Anyway back to what I was saying. I painted my frame with POR15 a couple of months back but due to the rather shonky job I did of it, I've been sitting staring at it wondering how to fix it. It looked alright from a distance but not so good up close. And the parts that were covered by the fairing looked really bad, not that they could be seen but I know its there, if you get what I mean.

So anyway I hooked up with a friend of a friend who said he could spray it with a pen gun in whatever colour I like and then put a matt or gloss clear over it. All I had to do is strip as much as I could off it, rearsets, exhaust, radiator etc and sand the chassis black off, well smooth anyway.

What I ended up doing though is getting really bored with the progress of sanding so I took to it with and angle grinder with a stainless brush in it. Por15 might be pretty tuff paint but it didn't have a chance against the brush and neither did the anodizing underneath.

Now I'm left with a clean bare aluminium finish and don't know what to do. I like the sprayed 2pack metalic black with a matt clear idea but then again I'd forgotten how good polished alloy looks. I sanded one area really quickly with 400grit paper and gave it a quick polish with some white tripoli and damned if it doesnt look awesome. It would look even better if I rubbed it back in stages up to 1200 or 1500 paper.

So now I'm not sure what to do. Maybe polish the frame and swingarm then mask it up and spray the areas around the headstock and inside the swingarm around the exhaust and maybe all the recessed holes where bolts go etc...

Any suggestions, like anyone know if you can mask up aluminium and spray or will it chip off where the paint meets polished alloy. Anyone sprayed a 2pak clearcoat over polished alloy and does it end up weathering badly and looking crap ...

[Steve TLS]

Good job of stripping the POR off, bite the bullet, strip the lot and powdercoat the frame black.

After all it is a bling bling carbon black bike, do you really want shiny, mirror like surfaces and silver looking bits contrasting the black?

I missed you

[Rupes]

I missed you too



Hmmm spent a lot of time just looking at it trying to come up with some ideas. The biggest obstacle is the motor. All the good ideas I came up with require the removal of the engine. And I can't see anyway of doing it easilly. I was thinking about it and if I did take out the motor I could
1. Spray it properly inside and out.
2. polish it properlly inside and out
3. Powdercoat it.. tho colour selection is limited to,,,well black I suppose
4. Annodize it black or for that matter any colour. Gold, purple, blue etc

I don't know that a polished frame would look that bad against the black. The chromed triple looks pretty good against it. And another thing is $$$ the polishing wont cost me anything but another couple of weeks of slavery to the beast.

Dammit I just wanna ride the thing

Hmmmm

[Duken4evr]

To be honest with you, I love how the TLR frame looks black, but the TLS frame, with it's smaller members, does not look appealing to me in black. I think a TLS frame might look pretty stunning polished though.

[Jim Brewer]

Originally posted by rupes
[B3. Powdercoat it.. tho colour selection is limited to,,,well black I suppose [/B]

Why do you say that? Where I had my TLR powdercoated, they had about 40 different colors with about 5 grades of texture .. from gloss to wrinkle.

[TLstreak]

I moved this over so when anyone wants to search later its in the correct place.

[Rupes]

Originally posted by Jim Brewer
Why do you say that? Where I had my TLR powdercoated, they had about 40 different colors with about 5 grades of texture .. from gloss to wrinkle.

Damn you guys get all the good stuff. Maybe they have a better selection at other places but when I had some car parts done a few years ago they only had about 7 colors or so ... black, red, blue, green, white, brown, yellow. Pretty dull colours too.

[Scrapyard]

Maybe this will help in your desision. I scaned this in from Streetfighters 106.

[crashtd]

hmm...i think they nabbed lance's pipe!

jim, how much did that powdercoating run yah if you don't mind me asking? You have to remove the swingarm bearings don't you?

-

[Steve TLS]

Rupes, if you go the powder coating route, ship the frame down here, for a slab I can get it blasted and done in black.

Our std colours are
Pommel Blue
Black
Yellow
Red
Magnolia
Grey
White
Clear
and a burgandy

We can get more colours, but that's what we have in stock. When yellow is done he has to do it twice, first coat is white the second yellow because it is a shit colour, not that you'd want a yellow frame??

[Rupes]

I'm at work at the moment and funny thing is I can't wait to get back to sanding again. Pitty I blew up my electic palm sander the other day. I think I might polish it, at least it will be in perfect condition to do anything with then. The only reason I was against polishing in the first place was the cost, but seeing as there is no reason I cant do it myself, why not.

[z0s0]

all i can say is hurry up and get your dam bike bak on the road

ohh... and welcome back

[Rupes]

Thats the plan... I thinking of it this way. I've made my tyres last for the last 6 months and they're still nearly new.

Expect a little of the action you got goin in your avatar. Oh and 6 months worth of wheelies.

[TLSBill]

Polished sounds phenominal.. Carbon/black everything hung off a bright frame would contrast great!

[Wedge]

I like the way the blacked out frame is coming on mine, I just need to get more paint before I can finish it all off.