It took a while, but I finally decided that primer grey covered in melted chunks of rubber, grease and general muck; vinyl number boards not stuck on very well; rubbing is racing incidents and big numbers covered in exploded bugs, needed a change.
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So with a lot of prep (well, not heaps, but some prepsol, then sanding, then some other nasty chemical) My mate Ty and I got spraying. Proper PPE was worn at all times and we sprayed in a hermetically sealed environment;
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After colour matching with the paint code, we sprayed 3 coats of the undercoat, then two coats of the top coat, followed by a couple of rattle can coats of clear and lots of rum to end up with this:
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Fairings on and a couple of stickers had it looking really nice. Colour didn't match, which did suck and still does a little, but at least the fairings don't actually touch the tank (original colour) at any point, so it's not glaringly obvious.
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After all this work, a couple of full days, I had to put numbers back on and had been inspired by Pete Frost. He had some numbers made in the style of Melandri. I thought it looked awesome! So I got a good friend of mine who is a graphic designer to make some for me off some dodgy drawings and shitty dimensions to fit the size and shape of the number boards I had sprayed on the bike.
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Then through the exchange of money for goods and or services, the fuhrer of tarmactalk made these for me
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When it came to putting them on the bike, I decided to start on the ducktail. Of course, it has the most complex curves and shape of all the bits of fairing and also happens to be the largest decal I have to put on the bike, yeh, good idea dickhead... I also managed to ignore using the spray bottle of very lightly soapy water to give me a chance of moving the sticker slightly after application. Eventually, after swearing, slapping my head, swearing a little more, a few tears and some swearing, it ended up looking a definite 10/20. Up close, it's fucked, ridges, bubbles and also it slightly tore the paint away from the fairing as I tried to peel it back to move it...
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Next one I attacked after punching a few kittens and bunny rabbits for making me stuff the first one up, was the strangely angled and sized front number. This time I used sprayed water and a squeegee to get each layer in a better layout. Very stoked with the outcome! I had to punch a little hole in it for the windscreen screw. It slightly twisted the vinyl, but not too bad.
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I was wanted to whack a couple of numbers on the bellypan. Reason for this, other than I think it looks cool, is when i was marshalling down at Wakefield for ASBK, I found it very easy to know which number the bike was if they had the number here. I also remembered to dry and get a sequence of pics for the application of the three layers. At least I remembered to get the midway...
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Next was to get some of the new TT decals on the bike, but not in the traditional black and yellow, I was reasoning with Nick that yellow is harder to spot on lighter coloured bikes and convinced him to try red. Being a dark blue, I figured the red would stand out... hehe, at first glance, I reckon it looks like the deltabox bit from the standard bike, then you realise it's something cooler!
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Finally, thought I best get the name on there, the red on black on the blue looks hot I reckon! Also whacked a sneaky one on the back
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One for the sponsor and she can rest easy of a night time
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Sorry for the longwinded post and overload of images, pretty stoked with how it turned out, it's gonna chip, scratch and look shitty in no time, but for now, she sure is pretty.
Oh, three layered numbers look amazing!
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If I can't go fast, I may aswell look fast
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