Helmet Fun

On a lark I picked up an Iwata airbrush kit on ebay, as well as a helmet painting DVD. Suitably inspired and instructed, I decided to try my hand at another helmet. I had painted a Nitro helmet in a Red Bull motif last year, but using an airbrush really helps, especially with autoair. All of the paint needs to be significantly thinned with the appropriate reducer, but the amount of paint waste is decreased dramatically, and with the airbrush, I was able to do the prep and paint at home in the office, and leave the clearcoating to the shop.

I decided to buy a Bell open face helmet, mainly for around-town and short jaunts. Any long distance stuff or real aggressive riding would see me use the new Vemar. I decided on a more modern, European-looking Mag 8. I was able to get one with a 2006 manufacture date off of an ebay wholesaler for $20.50. Shipping to Canada ended up being more expensive than the helmet.

The process was as follows (using the DVD as a guide)

• careful masking of the rubber piping around the shell, and removing as much of the interior padding as possible, and the visor


• keying the helmet with a brillo pad, not sandpaper -- left a nice, scuffed finish


• masking -- I saw a design I liked from a British bike mag (a custom design at that), and turned it into a Ducati-esque color scheme, using white, red, and green, with silver trim, on the black original shell


• I really had to think the steps through in order to get the design I wanted. More pre-thought led to much quicker masking. Using proper automotive blue fine-line tape and green masking tape makes all the difference. Do not waste your time with normal beige masking tape -- it will lead to nothing but headache! Pay the extra few bucks for the right stuff.


• I thinned the colors and base coat right in the airbrush cup, stirring it in. Again, there is no minimum or maximum reducing ratio with autoair. The thinner mixes required more coats, but also resulted in a much smoother finish... important for a helmet.


• So I painted away... flames are tough to do, and I did a few layouts where I was comfortable with what I had
  
• The silver trim was a headache, as past practice showed me that I wanted to avoid any "smiles" between where the green or red ended and the silver hilights began. Real painters free hand and pinstripe this stuff, but I didn't have the proper paint, brush or skill myself, so this area was also airbrushed. Next time, a slight change in the "order of operations" would alleviate this -- mask out the design/flame/whatever oversize, then apply the base coat and trim color, focusing on the outside. Then, mask the TRIM, and spray the main color "inside" the trim color. So, rather than do trimmed flames from the inside out, go outside in. Impossible to describe, but I guess I have the idea.
  
• I put 2 coats of clear, with a wet sand in-between. The decals have one healthy coat of clear overtop. A smoother finish than previous experiences -- the airbrush at work.

Snow Fun

What an absolute riot! Good friends, good weather, good fun! Doug, Billy, Wilson, and I met at Blixhaven's a few days ago for a great Sunday... +3, soft ice, and a clear track. The ttr ran great (probably the best it has), and all were out a least for awhile. Unfortunately both of Billy and Doug's Thumps blew tires, and the TTR lost a clutch lever. The XL was held together with some ingenious bolt swapping (brake perch for an exhaust stud?) and lasted the entire day. Put in a zillion laps, and only crashed a few times. The MTB tire solution continues to hold up well. I spent today replacing the clutch lever (an cutting a notch so it will break off the tip if necessary, not the entire piece. Good to go in the future!

Christmas Report

After a few days in Mid-December that were somewhat warm, we're back to a deep-freeze situation in MB again. The good news is that I was able to get out ice riding already, and the MTB tire experiment seems to have worked a treat! The idea was to cut up mountain-bike tires and use them as liners in the TTR tires. They are far more "flexible", and can be shoehorned into the studded tire much easier. They also provide sufficient protection to the tube, as the ice screws do not protrude too far into the tires carcass. In the end, after a valiant struggle by Scott at Transcanada, the tires were mounted and remained airtight for the day. Hoorah! Finally a consistent level of traction for ripping around the ice. Tellingly, only 1 crash this time out, whereas before it was 1 every five laps in the past.
Christmas also provides an opportunity to head to Fort Frances for a family visit, too much food, too much drink, and a chance to pick up parts which were being stockpiled there by my folks (shipping issue with the states). This trip saw me grab the spare TTR wheels (great shape), chin spoiler (new!), velocity stack covers (new), sprocket cover, exhaust heat shield, as well as a new helmet (Vemar, Snell 2005 spec), and a set of riding ankle boots from Spidi. I guess I am a slave to fashion. As well, I spent some time and made some numbers for the Carbon monster number plate I got from the UK. I was actually able to fabricate brackets so I can remove the headlight, unplug the wires, and mount the plate with 2 bolts -- pretty slick. The chin hugger was missing its mounting brackets, but a trial fit shows impressive quality and thick carbon. Light but pretty meaty. I also did a slight mod in order to clean up the undertray a bit -- just drilled some new holes to slide the assembly forward. The rear licence plate (when it is mounted) should be a bit more flush with the subframe and look a bit cleaner.

Winter is here

With a vengeance! -30 degrees Celsius all week, too cold to work on anything in the garage... and I really didn't have much to do. I did take my TTR125 wheels off to transcanada, with home-made tire liners (info to be posted on the results) to get mounted. I have never had any luck mounting bike tires with tubes without pinching the tubes... so I'm gonna pay through the nose to get the experts to do it right. I will then re-stud the front, replace the missing kold kutters (ice screws) in the back, and head out to the ice, hopefully tomorrow. Up to a balmy -7C in the forecast, here's hoping. Doug might also come out, so I'll be sure to bring the camera for some fun! Will also get to see Wilson's tizzer up close (his new TZ250).I've been debating doing something with the CF front fender and rear hugger. Both are used, and the CF is starting to yellow a bit. It would be nice to have some CF highlights remaining on the parts, but the rear needs a bit of work. I like a monochromatic idea, and the idea of leaving the CF bare is almost too much show for me... and I have lotsa time and lotsa paint left... Perhaps a color-matched rear hugger, and a front fender with just a bit of CF showing... we'll see. Got in the neat Pantah-era alu belt covers off of eBay. Fit up perfectly, but am going to keep an eye out for what happens with the liberal "venting" in them -- the previous owner had to split them apart to fit the taller 900 heads. I'm just a bit nervous that a stone might get in there and cause a bit of havoc. Perhaps a screen or lexan guard? We'll have to wait. The bike is now officially parked, and any new bits will be installed in the spring. I did leave it in such a way that I'd have access to work on a licence plate mount -- this will have to be custom-made by yours truly, to try to get it out of the way as much as possible. The under tray has some conveniently-located mounting points, which I will integrate into the design.

Diversions

While I was at it in the garage and paint booth, I was also working on finishing up another example of one of my hobbies -- model building. I guess I can't help myself, I have to be building or fabricating something all the time. This is a 1:9 model of the Cagiva V594. It was a 2-smoke GP bike from the mid-1990s. Chandler and Koscinski both raced for the team, as well as Juan Garriga, I think. This was the last model year machine that they competed, with previous versions having carbon-fibre frames, wheels, bodywork, and etc. Nearly bankrupted the company, but the team actually won races. Generally known as the pretties of the GP bikes, I as well think it is pretty sexy. I've built 2 Tamiya kits previously -- a Bimota and an 888 Ducati, and this Revell kit was neat in that it is a much larger scale. However, the Tamiya ones are better, IMHO, even with the difficulty of building in a smaller scale. Still this is, from what I know, the one and only kit ever made for the Cagiva 500.

Here are the pictures

Had some time this weeked to put things back together. For some reason the resolution on the camera is still not that great, but you get the idea. Still more details to finish -- need to replace the front turn signals (one is broken), and paint the exhaust hanger I built. New rotors are en route, and proper footpegs and a reverse shift lever is actually coming from South Africa.

Painting Progress

I've completed the finish coat on the panels and will post some pics shortly. A day ago, I saw the "scoop" photos of the new 848, and the white of that bike looks to be almost identical to what I've applied on my machine. That explains the Italian guys hanging around the garage for the last few weeks, and the feta cheese crumbs I saw in the paint booth -- they copied me! The end result was as follows: after prep,

• 3 light coats of autoair primer/sealer
• 4 coats of autoair coarse metallic white
• 3 coats of autoair transparent base
• 2 coats of clear (wet sand in-between)
• apply decals
• 2 more coats of clear (wet sand in-between)

Things have been curing for a few days, and I've started to assemble the tank hardware and will move to the taillights and seat parts soon. Overall, I'm pretty happy with how it all turned out. Considering the shape of the tail when I started, the end result is pretty decent.

Sent a portion of the exhaust pipe off to CycleBoyz in Brandon. Came back in great shape -- the Y-exit was turned into a single exit, with a nice taper to keep the gasses flowing smoothly, and the rivet holes for the last guy's exhaust guard were filled in. Now my aftermarket exhaust is even more custom than before, with a 2-into 1 design, the pipe being mounted on the RHS of the bike. I also need some sort of heat protection for my heel, and I'm flipping between a metal guard connected to the recently returned piece, or wrapping it in heat wrap. Not sure yet what to do. Targa actually makes a decent looking piece in alloy, anodized in a bunch of colors including silver.

My desire for decent brakes continues. I've got the master cylinder sorted, the actual calipers in place, but the rotors I got, it turns out, are cheap pieces of garbage. As you may have seen by the photos, I picked up a set of the "swiss cheese" style ones. No float whatsoever, steel carriers, and a poor alloy for the braking surface. Sold on base model Ducs. There is zero runout from what I can see with the naked eye, but moving the bike around the garage results in such severe binding that the machine is actually quite difficult to push. I did have a set of fully floating rotors from a guy in PQ, but it was nearly at the thickness minimum, and in my opinion, the float had turned to a severe case of slop! They made me quite nervous, as there seemed to be too much movement side-to-side as well as fore and aft. I returned them for a full refund.

Hindsight being 20/20 I should have kept the paired set of EBC Pro-lights I bought from Mark Hatten in 2004. Racing, going to a single caliper, etc. etc. led to the position I'm in now. So: I finally got a set of floating snowflake rotors off of eBay for a great price: $150. I'll keep the others for a potential set of rain wheels and tires in case I do trackdays or race -- It'd suck to drive to Calaboogie, Edmonton, or to the states and have to tiptoe around on the Michelin DOT race tires I have if it starts to rain...

No word on the CF chin fairing, shop has a huge website but is closed this week for renos and X-mas prep, according to the 1-800 number. Also begin to paint a $25.00 Bell open face helmet for around-town jaunts. Flames with a waving Italian flag furling underneath. Copied from a US-themed DVD I bought on ebay. Going to use Auto-air rather than House of Kolor paints. Will post the pics of the progress of that. Currently primered, flames masked, waiting for the airbrush to arrive -- a nice Iwata. Kate told me awhile ago, that even though I was sans racebike, it was "nice" that I found other things to do, like the helmet and the Cagiva GP model I'm playing with.

I'm also going to post some pics of the exhaust hanger I built. Rather than a hunk of alloy, I kept the trellis theme going and used some spare 4130 I had lying around. 3/4" and 5/8" tubing. Test-fitted it last night and it works, need to do some stylistic grinding an cutting for clearance purposes, then the rattlecan primer and hammertone paint finish for completion. After about 2 months without the torch in hand, and not much welding at all over the summer, the beads I made still look OK. I still struggle with sharp angle (less than 45 degree bends) welds -- the the inside of a V-shaped piece. Tough to get even a 00 tip in there, and to keep both tubes cherry to get some pooling. I guess that's where a tig comes in handy.