RWB 1996 - a winter restoration...

Hurry up, I wanna see it!

 

LOL!


X2 :tongue:

 

I'm not disappointed with your photo dump. Looking promising............

 

And then??????

 

Well Well, this will be good to see this all come together, great write too,

 

Cool project white is looking excellent

 

Mmmm.... got a feelin' this is gonna look reeeeally nice...

taptaptaptaptaptaptap...

 

At this rate, I'm never going to finish this project... I can't keep any decent momentum on it.

I got a ton of red panels painted yesterday, but discovered that the cold overnight temperatures ruined nearly all of it. Vermont's notorious bullshit hot one day, freezing the next weather is killing me. It was 72 degrees on Friday afternoon, and it's 34 degrees today. When I laid out the paint yesterday morning, it was 65 degrees in the garage.

Also discovered that my brother managed to get PB Blaster on the right upper fairing somehow when he was working on his car last weekend (ocupying my garage and not allowing me to paint anything that weekend), and I'll have to re-do that one too. :mad2:

Every time I get any sort of momentum going, it gets too cold to paint... FML!

At least I finished up the wheels and mounted them so at least I can move the bike around the shop. The new bearings and front rotors were a high note yesterday.

 

"I feel your pain..."
Seriously, many of us have similar circumstances screwing us up.

I have 4 bikes in my garage, every one is in some state of unfinished!
I want to get them all done and have them sitting 'turn-key' at my disposal.
Been making progress but it does get daunting, never enough time plus RI weather considerations.

Ambitious project you have there.
Keep your chin up and best of luck. :thumbsup:

 

The weather for the entire next week appears grim. Our highest daytime temperature is forecasted to be less than 51 degrees.

Project placed on hold, yet again. At least I can sand off all of the ruined paint in the freezing garage.

 

Well, it's 30 degrees out today, but I got lots of wet color sanding done last night. First paint stripes came out excellently. Front wheel has new bearings/seals and front rotors have been replaced. High hopes for a wife/child-free weekend - want to have all dark blue metallic sprayed.

I am going to rig up a way to paint in the basement (much warmer) - I can't wait to lay more paint. I already have a small-ish spray booth in the basement for painting model kits. I can't put most of the parts in the booth, but I have an exhaust fan I can run while I paint... If all else fails, I can evacuate fumes by opening up the bulkhead doors. No wife to complain about the smell!!

Anyways, a few more pictures:

 

Well, now it's officially red, white, AND blue:


The dark blue I chose is definitely not as dark as the original RC30, but it will still look great (especially against the light blue). I also began airbrushing on the clear pearl coat on the tank and the small piece under the tail light. All of the white pieces (except the wheels) will get this pearl treatment. It looks absolutely stunning in this morning's sunlight.

My airbrush actually seemed pretty up to the task, too. It might get the light blue paint detail work as well.

I also took some time last night to polish all of my bodywork bolts and Dzus fasteners. I also cleaned up my chain (nearly forgot I shelled out extra several years ago for the GOLD RK chain kit).

 

Lookin' GOOD!

We'll know it's you if we see you on the road... :wave:

 

That....is....awesome....

 

I've laid down the pearl coat on both of the belly pan pieces, the fender, the tank, the tail light lower trim, and the white stripes down the tail fairings.

Tried to take a picture (or 12) of them, and the pearl is so fine that even 10mp photographs can't capture it. Let's just say that it's absolutely stunning under 1 coat of clear. Under the 4-5 that I plan on doing, and it will absolutely glow bright white in the sun. I am so stoked on how the pearl process is going!!

Highly recommend this company/product:
Custom Paint | Pearl Paint | Candy Paint | Metal Flake | Automotive Paint | Temperature Change Paint | Chameleon Paint| Car Paint

 

Well, it doesn't seem as though there is a tremendous amount of interest in this project... :attention:

Oh well.

Last night I laid out the light blue on six different pieces (top of radiator cowl, tops of both mids, both bottoms of the uppers, and the tank stripe). The tank and the uppers will require more paint this evening. At least the light blue paint dries very quick, I should be able to paint them when I get home and take a picture of the pieces hung on the bike by the end of the night.

Beyond the blue, everything now hinges around wet sanding (1500-2000 grit) the "finished" pieces and re-clearing them, repeatedly.

I need to get some more dark blue - not only do I have some minor touch up on several pieces, the lower bit of the fuel tank will also need to be dark blue.

I will be ordering my gold vinyl striping soon, too. This will go over the final clear coat, and be the "divider" between color stripes (like on the real RC30). I will be clearing over my other decals, but will likely NOT clear over these stripes.

 

Looking sweet VT. Keep it up. Next to yellow, RWB is my favorite!

 

Well, another set back...

The light blue paint really is not staying smooth as it dries. Luckily, I have half of a pint of it left - I am going to have to lay this stuff on ultra-thick and sand it back to smooth. Otherwise, it will be all wavy.

I am extremely happy with the color itself, and the paint lays down ultra smooth and dries quick. The problem might be that it dries and shrinks too quickly, and is exposing white/primer as it dries. I have found that for the smaller areas that this happens that about a dozen ultra-thin coats, with a flash dry with a hair dryer seems to alleviate the problem, but creates a secondary issue of an uneven coat. I am going to re-prime one panel and see if it helps, and re-spray the other panel using the technique above.

The odd part about this issue is that it NEVER attacks the entire panel - just small sections. I am thinking that it's either related to the cold weather (I have been taking parts inside to dry) or improper re-coating techniques on my part (or maybe a combination of both).

For all those who are curious, the paint is a DuPont enamel, pre-thinned with a medium Nason reducer.

 

Thats weird....
Were you gonna run the gold pin stripe between colors? May cover that up.

 

Yeah - I have a 150' roll of 3M ScotchCal 3/8" light gold metallic striping tape on order. It will go between the swaths of RWB colors on the body.

It will cover up some, but not nearly all, of the wrinkly paint. Some of my wrinkles are appearing across big sections of the panel, other wrinkles are 1"-2" single cracks on edges...

I re-primered both of the uppers last night after sanding most of the light blue paint off of them again. Enamel is wicked tough - I'm hoping my decision to choose it means that the paint is going to last a while.

The seat cowling, middle tail piece, and the nose piece are now clear coated.