Some of you may have seen this on Facebook already but I had a few minutes and thought I would share it here. I acquired this very nice 2006 / ABS model a few years ago and decided pretty quickly that I did not like the graphics or the overall look that much.
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I began thinking about what I wanted to do. I changed out the rear wheel with a nice 8 spoke that I found on Ebay early on. This helped but still not what I wanted. Then I looked at a lot of paint schemes to see how I wanted to go. I wanted this to be a little understated but "sporty". I am lucky that I have a friend who is a painter who agreed to help me out. I did all of the prep work. I scuffed the existing plastics and the tank with 1000 grit paper to give the new paint something to grip.
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It's really pretty scary to see what you've done to a pristine finish the first time you try this. Trust that when the clear goes back on it really is like magic.
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Next I laid out the design and let my friend shoot it.
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I used two additional colors. This one is a Lexus/Toyota color called "Storm Gray". The second color is from Jaguar and matches the wings on the tank. I finished by adding a pinstripe that we put under the clear. Once the paint and clear was on, I did the final buffing and leveling.
Here is the final result...
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