Modern Vespa

Hi all,

First post, thought I'd start a thread detailing the work I'll be doing on my ET4.

I purchased a ET4 a few months ago to commute to work and back, it had has some surface rust, some chips, scrapes etc.

It's a 2003 model.

I was going to patch it up and just cover over the paint work that was damaged, then thought why not just strip the bike to bits and do a complete repaint!

Im doing it all myself, over the next week or so (starting Saturday!).

I will painting it a deep metallic black with a red pearl! A bit ambitious but im confident.

I'll be using the black base coat as seen here: http://www.specialistpaints.com/products/base-metallic-canz

The pearl as seen here (red pearl): http://www.specialistpaints.com/products/pearl-canz

Should come out quite well assuming my prep work, priming and lacquering go well!

I have also ordered a LX seat in Tan which should arrive in the next day or two.

Should be exciting project, oh, and hi all.

cool, post some pics when you are done with it.

I shall be posting lots of progress pictures, hopefully the 2K Primer, Metallic Base Coat, Pearl Coat and 2K Lacquer will arrive in the post today.

Very excited

Ok so the paint came this morning, I took an afternoon off work and started work on the scoot.

This is how he started, you can't see in the pics but it had scuffs each side, some surface rust on the front and various other places:



This was the first big annoyance when stripping it, these didn't wanna budge, so sprayed them with WD40 and left them for 20 minutes.



Success!



Nekkid!



Some sanding of surface rust, i treated it with a rust treatment also to try stop it from happening again.



Bye bye lacquer.



Lets get priming!





Now to wait 24 hours for it to dry, then to sand it down, and then paint.

love that the scoot is in the living room. YES!
have fun with the project, looks good!
i had my living room takin up by installing the
190 kit last winter. i had to step over it each day for
all of december.

That's a surprising amount of rust and corrosion on the seat bracket, I've never seen it that bad..

I wonder why ET4 has its air intake located there, and ET2 is in a different place. Gives me some ideas for future plans on my LX.

Good luck with the rest, and big up respect for project work in the living room.

Thanks for the comments guys, I suppose one benefit to being single is that I don't have anyone moaning at me for taking over the living room!

As for the rust, it was a well used scoot, and I'm sure lived a lot if it's life exposed to the elements, this is unfortunately the case for most of the screws I encountered, really annoying!

No progress will be made today as I have my works Christmas dinner to attend, but Saturday should see me sanding down the primer and applying the black metallic base coat w/red pearl!

These cans have had great reviews in the past so I really hope it turns out well.

New seat should also arrive today, it's a tan LX seat, should go well.

Sometimes an unfortunate side effect of living in England and owning a scoot thats lived some of it's life outside.

Love to see how this turns out!

Judging how cold its been in London this week and especially today you'd be mad doing it outside this weekend!!

Quick update, house STINKS of paint.

Sanded down the primer this morning and applied the black metallic basecoat.

Just tested the red pearl over a seperate test panel and it's created a plum like finish which is really nice, I think two coats of the pearl should do fine.

I didnt really know what finish i'd get with the black metallic and red pearl, it's usually applied to white basecoats and you get that shimmer of colour in the light.

Different effects are achieved depending on the basecoat, it seems to come out quite well on black met but looks probably more purple than red.

Similar to this:




More photos of the respray will be added at some point this evening.

Won't have time to post pictures later, so heres a preview of the colour.

In most lights it looks more plum, although will deepen in colour a lot when the lacquer is applied.



Edit: Sorry for poor image quality, was taken with my phone.

what ya use to paint it ..... cans or gun??

Cans from these guys, really high quality paint. I use a trigger grip on the cans in order to help spray.

Their cans have really good flow, and great coverage.

http://www.specialistpaints.com/

Im using their 2K primer and 2K lacquer too.

With regards to the paint, it's a 3 coat black metallic with 2 coat red pearl.

first of all good luck on this, I have the same vespa and I like your project!
how did u apply the primer? in spray form? you sanded it by hand?

Yes the primer was a spray, SP do 2K primer in a can, it's really good stuff: http://www.specialistpaints.com/products/2k-primer-canz

They are quite expensive but are good quality.

I sanded by hand, yes, I haven't had such a work out in years!

A small update for this evening.

Lock barrell removed from my old torn seat.



Installed into my new (used) tan LX seat.



Primer sanded down and then dust cleaned off after.



The black basecoat.



Hard to see but its really nice and metallic.



The red pearl coat has also gone on, it gives the paint a sort of plum type of feel. When it's seen in dark it appears black, when in the light or certain angles you see flashes of red and deep plum, looks really nice, when you shine a light on it you see the metallic flakes of both the pearl and the met. black show up. Very hard to reproduce on a camera at this stage.

REMEMBER the lacquer hasn't been added yet, that comes on Sunday.



Hopefully you can get an idea of the colour from this.

great job, so far. enjoying your thread.

keep on the good work AKP! very inspiring

Small update.

I started lacquering, we're now on the third coat which will be the final coat of lacquer.

Everything went find, although in a small patch I did apply too much and got a little dripping, I suppose I need to learn from that! It's not really visible but will wait until it drys and decide if i want to sand it back and relacquer -i suspect i wont though.

All the panels, dash etc have now been lacquered too. Before I applied the lacquer i applied a very light dusting of the red pearl to the paint work and left it for 15 minutes, this appearently helps stop any matt effect you may get, so far it seems to have done the trick.

I will post pictures of the bike itself when the lacquer drys.

Two other things came, I will be putting the sticker on the spark plug hatch, and the badge is a replacement front badge. I also have a replacement side badge coming but its still in the post.



Im deciding if i should apply the sticker as is, or put it on the hatch and lacquer over it, giving it a real shine inline with the rest of the bodywork and protecting it too, what do you guys think?

Little update to show you the lacquer! I keep saying I won't post pics then end up doing so :p


Decided to apply a couple of layers of lacquer to the spark plug cover/service cover and then put on the service sticker and apply another coat.

It looks lovely and will polish up nice I think.



Here is a picture to show you the colour now that the lacquer has gone on, seems to be quite a nice deep colour.

Last updates for today.

Tomorrow i'll be putting it back together, theres a few piece here and there that need touching up so i'll do that with a fine brush (just tiny bits when masking off, a little annoying!).

I trial fitted the LX Tan seat to see what it'd look like. Luckily it looks just as i imagined, but i'll let you be the judge.

Do you plan to paint also the plastic protector of the pipe?

Hadn't planned to, want to keep that standard, at some point I
Will be getting a performance exhaust so nice to have a standard one to sell on I guess.

Managed to mess up the colour on the horn cover, so having to take it back to primer and repaint. A bit annoying, but hey you live and learn.

Other parts are starting to go back on the bike now.

it seems you have done a very good job, looks professional!

Well a little update for you all.

I had to re-do the horn cover as I screwed up the paint, not leaving enough time and taking it back enough meant i got whats called 'alligatoring', essentially the paint looks like alligator skin!

So thats been redone, and im waiting for the lacquer to dry so I can stick it on the bike.

In the meantime the side panel Vespa badge came today so I stuck that on earlier.

I ordered a new horncast badge, I didn't realise how corroded the other one was until I took this picture.

It's the little touches which will finish off this bike.

Just thought i'd make a post about primer too.

There is a MASSIVE difference between 2K Primer and the stuff you find in shops.

I used: http://www.specialistpaints.com/products/2k-primer-canz on my bike, and having had to use another primer to do the horn cover as i retouched it the difference in application was shown immediately.

The flow of non-2K cans is kinda bad, and the coverage is poor, the stuff provided by SP covers really well, sands extremely well and has great flow.

When sanding the 2K you can feel and see the quality, the regular canned stuff that I used on the horn cover and a completely different texture and didnt sand down nearly as nice.

Basically what Im trying to say is use 2K lacquer, paint and primer wherever possible, the difference is really visible.

How many cans did you use for the complete repaint? Primer, laquer included

2 X 2K Primer
3 X Black Metallic Paint
2 X Red Pearl Paint
3 X 2K Lacquer

So 10 cans in total.

really impressed with this...
so impressed I've ordered some flip paint in cans off Ebay to do my Lambretta chop...

usually just slap on matt black...
but I reckon if you can do it so can I

had a look at the ones you bought..
but they are expensive ,
may live to regret not buying them though

get the bike out in the sunshine..that pearl will come alive

Im glad you like

They are indeed quite expensive, but in my opinion, if you're gonna do it, do it properly. I've played with other paints before and tried other lacquers, these are by far the best i've ever used, the coverage and flow set them apart.

That isn't to say of course you wont achieve great results if you buy from somewhere else

Look forward to reading your project thread.

will put some pictures up if it turns out OK..
sure won't be done as quickly as yours,
still welding and chopping it about..

that must of been interesting spraying indoors..
sprayed a horncover indoors years ago,
made me feel really unwell, should of used a mask

Well suffice to say doors and windows were open.

I wore a mask at all times and wore gloves all the time too. The decision to do it indoors was because Im a wimp and wouldnt be able to handle the cold of my shed or outside.

next project ......... redecorating front room n cleaning overspray off tv

Had sheets over the valuables when spraying

^ I was wondering about that myself

my house was like a garage when I was single...
permanent smell of petrol and skunk/dope 8)


things have changed since I've had six kids....

If you dont mind me asking, how many of each can of spray paint did it take?

To answer the question above.

Wow, looking good! Love the color with the tan seat!

How much did it cost you? It seems like you could have gone to a professional for $100 more