Modern Vespa

aaah. This makes sense.

The paint shop told me it's hard to get PPG paint. Glasurit is apparently owned by PPG. The only local suppliers are like wholesalers, and the shop gave me all these notes and tips for dealing with them.

There is one locally that I'll visit.

He recommended Essential paint for single stage, bc it's cheaper. But it's also owned by PPG.

I'll see if I can get Glasurit from the supplier. The paint shop thought the problem would be the Piaggio code, and recommended the similar, common VW/BMW ones.

He also said that the high end PPG paint would run me around $1500 for the paint and activator. Which is as much as the paint shop is charging for painting.

I forgot that you were in California. In the boondocks of northern New York, you can buy any kind of paint from places like O' Reiley's and produce urethane death clouds in your backyard as long as you don't get it on peoples cars, pets or children. I try to be sensible though. It's nasty stuff. Paint prices seem to be all over the place. I have done fine with fairly low cost 2k paint. Anything I've done on my bus comes out way better than factory paint right out of the gun and seems quite durable. Acrylic enamel though seems to chip quite easily though if no hardener is added.

Have to decide if I can live with this.

It's definitely better than it was (no fork stop at all), but the left still goes a bit more than the right.

Argh.

put the headset on and check if it hits the top of the legshield (allowing for the trim and headlight rim). As long as those clear you can call it done.

That's a good idea! If the headlight hits the trim, or is close.

The rurn radius on these bikes is very wide!

Little detail things.

I found a shop that polished and re-anodized the badges.

They kind of messed up the Vespa one. They polished off the texture between the letters, even though I asked them not to. But I'll see how it looks with black paint.

Also found a NOS Nieman lock set, so I have all the original keys.

Getting too OCD here.

Is that the one from Scooter Center??

Yes!! Thank you so much for posting that! It arrived from Germany super fast, too.

You say OCD…like it's a bad thing.

The badges look great and I know you know that it will really set the bikevoff. Like Chandlerman's Cushman badge. Also draws the eye away from where you maybe missed a spot, because we always do.

It's not going to be perfect. Guess it never is, unless you find something that is near-perfect to start.

even then it's not perfect, just an original state of not perfect.

Imperfections in our work jump out and smack us in the face when we look at them. Anyone else sees the thing as a whole and not an ensemble of tiny mistakes. I think these kind of things add character. At a certain point it's good to let go and move on with the project. There will be something else.

Yep.

And I have this other identical one, which I''m going to start as soon as this one is done.

That should be an easier project. It's in much better shape.

And you can use all the experience you gathered doing the first.
Here's a tip on filler work... Spread it thin and evenly and sand it down to the high spots and blend in the perimeters. Do this over and over again until you can just leave a skim on the highs. Alternating red and blue hardener lets you keep track of the overall thickness. A thin coat of light primer ( the surface is easier to inspect in a solid color) and a dusting of black lets you find the low spots. Black really shows up the scratches. A good way to check is to skip a grit which will not cut to the bottom of the previous grit.
Keep in mind that single-stage paint will fill nothing and even 400 scratches will show. Though I've never shot BC/CC, I understand that the base coat isn't sanded so it serves to fill and the clear can be dealt with on its own. I'd love to know what Piaggio used for primer as it seems to fill really well and, as far as I can tell, was not sanded. Most likely lacquer-based.
No matter how anal you get, things will be evident with a shiny surface but no one is going to get down on their knees and inspect the finish. The LED lighting in my shop shows so much stuff you can't see in normal light. As OCT said, people will see it objectively as a whole.
In any case, I shoot for 100% and sometimes I get fairly close. Over time, subjectivity morphs into objectivity.

At what stage are you going to hand it off to the painter ?

Thanks for the tips!

I'm going to finish the dents and filler, then send to the painter. They will seal and paint it, and do any finishing it needs that I missed.

I'm struggling a bit with the filler. I keep putting on too thick, and it's workable for such a short time.

But just lots of adding, sanding, touching up.

I have filler and glaze coat. It's taking me a while, but I think I can get it!

Are you using these spreaders ?

No, I was using a plastic putty knife. I can see this is not working, though.

I'd get some spreaders.
I spread the filler out smooth and build it up in layers to where it just skims the high spots, fairing it out with the surrounding surfaces and feathering out the edges. You can re-coat it as soon as it becomes solid. I try to keep the heavy paper sculpting to a minimum.
Mix less more often.

The short working time is a feature of the putty so, as Moto64 describes, you can add a layer, sand it off, then add another layer in short order. The idea is that it's an iterative process, so you don't want to be sitting around waiting on your filler to cure.

But definitely get some spreaders. They make a world of difference in ease of working it.

I'll definitely get the spreaders. They flex, which helps a lot.

I can see how small amounts works better. I was trying to do a round on all the spots at once, and it dries too quickly, and I ended up putting too much on.

One area at a time makes more sense.

But then I sand it so there's barely any left.

I'm keeping a lot of the imperfections. Like the floor here is not completely flat. I'm not sure if the rails bent, but I think they had a slight curve, which made an indentation near the rail. I could Bondo it flat, but decided to just straighten out the areas where the spot welds are.

I think the frame was right, bc it's symmetrical and goes all the way up.

Want to be really sparing with filler.

I doubt Vespa floors were dead flat from the factory. It's not a machinists table. When stuff like that gets spot welded there is kind of like a pincushion effect. One of the reasons a lot of body shops use so much filler is they do like to get things dead flat. Which is why I do my own filler work on my bus. Same pincushion effect from spot welded assemblies. Go over it with a straightedge in the summer sun and it's different in the middle of winter.

I got some paint!

Thanks Birdsnest. It made it from Texas, and I think I found a shop that can mix some more Glasurit, and has the other components.

love following your adventure! so much to learn! and its looking great.!!

Hopefully both of ours are done for the SF Classic in August.

I'm months behind.

Only "months behind" is ahead of schedule on most of these projects.

Bondo covers all.

looking really great, probklem is when working on it yourself you know where to find each and every little blamage which 99% of people will never notice.

soldier on, almost there!

It looks great. I know you know about the guide coat thing and the bondo spreaders. If you aren't already, you should be doing your final filling with a glazing putty. It's sometimes called dolphin glaze. It's like a runny bondo that's super easy to sand. It replaced that crumbly red paste that came in a tube or many rounds of priming and flatting pitted spots.

Apologies if this has already been explained.

Ah, yes. Glaze.

I got this stuff. The paint shop recommended. It sands easier than the orange bondo. But I put on way too thick.

I got spreaders, which I hope help with doing a very thin application. I have to basically do all the external areas. There's some minor rust pitting in a lot of places. It's very light, but I want those to be smooth.

I did this totally wrong the first time. I did a big batch, then was shoveling it on too much area before it tacked up. Going to try small amounts and small areas, to minimize sanding.

Keep up the great work HJo! This rally is really coming along nicely.

Closer! one more round of skim coat on just a few spots, on the frame.

I can't tell which right is the right right, so I think you're fine either way on the mudguard

The mudguard WILL wind up getting bent and reshaped because they're just so flimsy. You can bump into it in the garage and that'll warp it. The upside is that it's easy to put back.

If you wanted to extend the bracing out to the front edge, that would help, but only on the one side.

You killed it on the tunnel patch. It really came out good.

The mudguard looks like one side is pushed out more. Not sure which side is right. Push in or pull out the wrong side. Even a pristine repro might get wonky through shipping. I would get it as close you can and call it good.

Yep. I think both sides of the fender are a little off, and pushed out wider.

But it's not so bad. If I can get it symmetrical.

I was looking at repro fenders. My biggest concern is that they're all different. Like the angle of the ridge in the stamp. And it's hard to tell if they're right without having one.

This is an original Piaggio one, so at least it's the right stamp.

That tunnel patch was a real challenge. I don't think it's possible to get it so it will be perfect and unnoticeable. But close, and at least the metal is strong.

It all looks good to me. Get it too perfect and the universe will smite you. I assume you want to ride it. You don't want to lose your mind the first time it gets a ding.

Definitely! I was thinking of taking it on a trip to Seattle if I can get it done by mid summer.

I always ride my bikes.

I was talking to Kristian at Bar Italia, and he was saying that most of the concours restorations he does just go to collectors, and never get ridden. He will do maintenance on them just to keep them in perfect running condition, but they just sit in a collection.

There's this whole market for those, that you never see. The people don't even take them to the classic scooter shows/events.

I can kindve understand the hardcore preservation aspect, but keeping beautiful specimens hidden away almost defeats the point of having them, IMO. It's selfish, like locking art in a vault when it was meant to be seen and enjoyed.

If you spend that kind of money getting a restoration like that.. you better be riding it to show off your peacock feathers!

It's like Stinky Pete in Toy Story. Trapped in his box forever.