Modern Vespa

You could cut it down the middle, do a couple of relief cuts at the bend and bend each piece separately. JB weld them back together. The rubber would cover all that. Use the JB weld after the rubber is in.

they are really soft and not hard to bend

circle of wood + two blocks of wood + hammer

I would try it like oops described first.

I will try this! I am ordering a spare, just in case.

That's always a good plan. Was it just one that was off?

Not unusual to have trouble with aftermarket trim for any old transportation. I will spare you the story, but share a couple photos. 'Twas a beast.

You got it to work! <3

This is exciting.

I finished the skim coat on the front fender, and it looks great!

This had a lot of rust pitting along the top, and the shape was a bit off, but it's all gone! Just a couple of flaws I didn't notice. They get smalller and smaller.

This is so much work.

Got it to the sanding primer phase, but in a light solid color, all the flaws come out. Lots of dings and dents I hadn't seen.

Getting closer.


Seam sealer







The seams need a little clean up. :)



The tail looks so wrong. I hate it! I will straighten out the metal, but it feels like it's too long, and not square.

I didn't even notice this dent in the horncast



The cowls have so many dents, I didn't even see until now.



The frame bridge is definitely not perfect. But the replacement part was a little different. The curve isn't exact.

I know you measured, that tail several times something still isn't right. Do you by chance have access to a self leveling laser level with a cross beam pattern? You could use vertical beam aligned to seam coming down rear fender, and adjust frame platform until those are aligned. Then align horizontal across bottom to see where you want to be.

Getting all those little too-small-to-see dents is always tricky. I have a multitude of them on my VBB, in particular, that I never noticed until I was past the point of doing anything about them.

Your scoot is going to be gorgeous, and you're the only one who's going to notice any of that. I can't even tell where you repaired the tunnel bridge now that it's in primer, for instance.

Keep on pushing forward. You're on the home stretch now!

Scratch coat reveals all defects. I am assuming that's your next step.

Agreed. You knocked that tunnel repair out of the park. I can't see it either and fudged joints and body lines really irk me.

Sanding a guide coat will probably reveal a handful of minor imperfections, but do it. It feels like the last and hardest mile, but totally worth it with the quality of work you have done. This is why projects like yours can look better than a professional resto.

Really makes me smile to see someone dive in, learn new skills, struggle, stick with it and make something beautiful.

Respect. ☝️

Looking GOOD!! Don't forget the holes for the center mat. Better drill before paint…

I'll get one of these!

Thanks for all the comments! I feel very frustrated that it's not perfect. But perfectionism is a curse. Also just want to ride it. This bike last ran in 1985, and would never have again, so that's something.

This is the hardest thing for me personally- When I get close to finishing, I just want to steal home base and run it in. It is better to take two weeks perfecting the prep than to stare at the imperfections for the next ten years. >>Dr. Take thine own medicine...

I'll definitely do a guide coat.

It's so much work to do this last little detail stuff, but it's workable, and definitely worthwhile. Especially since the paint is so expensive.

Makes a huge difference.


There was a lot of rust pitting on the bike, from sitting outside so long.

But it really cleaned up well with the skim coat and sanding primer.

I want it to have this kind of reflectiveness. So really important to have it all as smooth as possible when they paint it.

I don't think you as close to the finish line as you might hope.... sheet metal that wavy is not a quick fix.

That's two-stage, whose gloss is very different from single-stage. It definitely won't have a vintage shine if you go that route.

2 stage has a deeper gloss because of the layer of clear coat, but isn't necessarily more glossy. Just different You can buff either until it's a glossy as you want, or flat it down. I've also heard of using corn starch to give single stage a glow, but that might just be for laquer.

I thought that was so it would thicken better when it was boiled.

Another round of hammering on these things.

I might take a few days and not think about this. It's painful.


In direct light, they look better.

Light/shadow still reveals lots of flaws. But I didn't skim coat or anything.







Replacing them is tempting. Though I'm sure the original ones fit better.

Some of those rally cowl repops fit really well. I had a pair and fit was 8/10. The stamping is Very slightly different than the originals, with less definition in the louvers and the sharpness of lines. That said, after paint and once on a scooter; they are only distinguishable to a discerning eye.

Your cowls aren't that bad. Keep up the good work, it will be worth the effort to use the originals.

You are discovering first hand why good paint and body work is so expensive.

Yep. You can see that the stamping is different. I'll try some more work on these. I have the ones from the other Rally, but I think they're worse. There's a hole rusted through, and one needs the peg welded back on.

It's not hard to get them close. Maybe I can get them straight enough that just a little filler works.

This bike was very abused. It's kind of amazing that this was so dented, but the louvers were straight.

Looks like the bike was laid down on both sides, so they were pushed more flat.





Last edited by hjo on Tue, 07 Jun 2022 12:02:23 +0000; edited 1 time

For me, and I have done a LOT of this stuff, this is the hardest phase. The anxiety of knowing that even the areas I think are good can be glaring when the paint is on drives me nuts right up to puling the trigger on the gun.
Guide coats ( basically just a dusting of a contrasting colored primer ) with sanding blocks and skims with glazing putty, then primer and guide, over and over again until I am satisfied and there will still be spots that show later. Filler primer will help with sanding scratches but not for low spots, ripples, and waves.
You want to use something like this that hits the highs to show the lows : https://tinyurl.com/muv97car . The challenge with these Vespas is that there are no large flat surfaces like a car door or hood so you need to bend the block to follow the curves without grinding down the corners. If you are cutting the filler with, say, 180 grit, you have to go over that successively down to at least 600.
It is well worth the time, whatever it takes, to get it as absolutely smooth as you can. Dull primer with a light held across the surface will show where it needs more work. This is a painstaking and slow process. Often, just skimming and sanding will do , but the high areas will dictate the thickness and most of the time , bumping them down and blending the surface with hammers and dollies is better. You want to get it as close as you can before skimming.
Light colors will show less than dark and the higher the gloss, the worse it can look.
I like single stage knocked down to 3000 grit and compounded much better than the plastic look of clear coat, though the clear can also be cut down as well. Also, even if the surface is totally free of ripples and waves, 320/400 grit scratches will show up . Paint is not a filler. Although I have never used it, I believe that the two-stage base coat paint does help filling small scratches better than single-stage.
Of course, a nice orange peel finish hides a lot of imperfections as well....
Hang in there and keep up the good work. I can tell you that if you had it painted as it is you will surely be disappointed. Another ( expensive) option is to have the painter complete the filling and sanding. Then you can be disappointed with someone else's work...

Thanks! This block is perfect!

I've been using a foam one, but it's smaller.

I'm learning that you have to hammer/dolly it to almost perfect. The skim coat worked for scratches and pitting, but not for high/low spots, unless they're very minor. It worked at the weld seams, though.

Yup. And if you can't get it even with the hammer and dolly, at least get it low so you can fill it.

I wet-sanded my VBB more because I needed some way to recover from the orange peel than anything else, but I do love the shine it has now. I used flexible foam blocks very similar to the one Moto64 linked and they work really well.

A lot of *auto* body instruction is focused on getting flat things perfectly flat again, which I suspect (haven't done it, so I can only speculate) tricky in its own right, but still easier than getting compound curves properly curved.

My first bodywork project was my boat, which was fiberglass, so no H&D, but was also all curves, and a LOT more of them. When I'm feeling particularly masochistic, I have considered going back and wet-sanding the topsides of the boat for maximum shine, but that would require me to run out of scooter projects first, which will never happen.

You have done an amazing job. From where you started to now.... this thing has come so far! My 2 cents... keep on going as long as it feels right to chase the improvements, but not to the point you hit the burn out wall. How's the saying go.... "Don't let perfect be the enemy of good."

Heck of a resurrection and it will look amazing when your done.

I agree with this. I expect I will *always* find things you missed, no matter how careful and diligent you are. Even things that I thought looked great when I finished the project, I have later noticed spots I missed or have decided I wish I'd done better/differently.

There's always the option of choosing one element and spraying it in order to see how close you are. That way the rework is less if you are disappointed.

The law of diminishing returns definitely applies. You get to the point where your expectations exceed your current skill level and there are things you just can't get perfect. I get to the point where I just can't get the metal exactly the way I want and know I won't be able to learn it this time around.

Btw, body shops cheat like hell. I'd rather have honest metal with a little character than a perfect surface with overly thick filler.

THIS! THIS! THIS!

I'm infinitely prouder of something that is maybe less-than-perfect, but that I did myself to the best of my abilities, than any "perfect" work I hired out.

Thank you so much for all the tips and encouragement.

And thanks again Birdsnest for the paint! I got another quart mixed. The Glasurit paint shop said it's the best quality single stage paint.


The Glasurit shop is like 40 miles outside the city.

Guide coat.

One of their paint jobs.

Piaggio Biancospino 715. It's amazing you can just tell them the code.

Getting closer

The dent on this one is the whole center of the cowl. but it seems to be coming out. It's much better.

Those cowls look like hard shapes to work with.

Those cowls look like hard shapes to work with. The transition from curved to flat is tough. Similar to vbb cowls in that they are flat across the middle.

Keep at it. You still have some wavy in it. It's the high spots that end up giving the most trouble. You want to get them level or slightly lower. The hardest part is finding all the things like this. They don't smack you in the face until the colour is on.

It's still gonna look smashing. I find this forum really helpful and supportive. No one seems overly invested in claiming their way as the right way.

The righthand cowl is looking pretty darn close to finished. Only unwanted shadows I see in that picture are on the flat just in front of the louvers.

The lefthand cowl has a lot more work to do, though. At least you don't have to basically work inside a bowl b/c of of the glovebox floor hamming out like the VBB or GL cowls.

Are you using a metal rule to assess flat areas (with the edge) and curves (by laying it flat?). That's a great technique I learned from the RestoLad videos (which I think Ginch first pointed me to) if you haven't watched them.

Closer and closer.

I almost have the cowls. Spent hours mostly tapping on them. And the shape really comes back. You can get it to where there are just tiny highs and lows in spots.

This has been fun to learn.

And it's amazing. Like building and refining layers. And everything beneath them is as it should be. No rust. No damage.

And it's all so workable.

I was watching a repair video where the person said "Don't worry, everything always works out in the end. Because you keep fixing and working until it does."


There are visible highs and lows, but they are really slight.

I got the shape on this one. It was really damaged. Like pushed more flat everywhere.

I had thought this cowl was almost perfect, but the patina and dull paint hid a lot.

I just see one dent in the sun now.

The spots to fix and glaze are getting smaller.

This one is closer.

It's not quite there, but just some small spots. The shape looks right, too.

Much better.

There's something immensely satisfying about watching the dents melt away under the tapping of the hammer.

It's also amazing to me how little force is required when you're doing it right.

It's looking great! Much better in the sun now.

Gonna have to start shipping my body work out to you! Looks GREAT!

😆