Flame Paint

Flame Paint:

After much deliberation and delay, I decided to go for the new flame paint. Below are some pics of the process and final results. The project was done by Scott Farrell at Custom Flame Painting . He has an excellent web site with some good tips on how to do it yourself if you want. I have nowhere to paint so I decided to have him do it. A future project, though, will be to paint my full-face helmet to match which I plan to do myself.

I first leaned toward the Ferrari Red with black flames as shown on the web site above but a bright red Spirit did not sit right with me. I always liked black on a bike so I went the route you see below.

For those of you considering something similar, the cost for the paint job I was quoted is about $900 with an additional $125 for the blue pin stripes. If you only go for two colors and no pinstriping, it will be cheaper. You can get a quote at the Custom Flame Painting web site. He'll get you a quick quote for your special project. There is a special link on the site for estimates. Replies to all my e-mails have been fast. Shipping will be extra and depends on how you go. I shipped UPS 2nd day air and that was about $130 each way. I wrapped the pieces in bubble wrap and filled the box with styrofoam peanuts and he will send it back in the same boxes.

I sent the parts to be painted on 3/25/02 and got them back on 4/24/02, so allow a month for the project. They looked fantastic when I unwrapped them and put them out in daylight. I am very pleased with the job he did. One thing to keep in mind is that the paint/clearcoat is still soft when you get it so handle it extremely carefully. It's very easy to get swirls and scratches on it even with a soft cloth. For the first 30 days he recommend only using water and a soft cloth to clean the parts. He does send along a bottle of special glaze to clean it with for that first 30 days but that's all you should use.

Bottom line, I love the new look.

Took the opportunity to really clean and service the bike while it was stripped down. Good time to lube the cables, too.

Also replanned the wiring for the rear lights. I have the LL bags and will do a neater job installing the wiring for the rear lights. I noticed that the rear tire had been rubbing the wiring harness so I need to tuck it away more neatly when I reinstall it..

These are the parts I shipped. I included the neck covers to match the black of the rest of the parts.

Just out of interest, this is what the fuel valve, filter element and pet cock looks like. You can see now how the reserve fuel system works. Just be sure to tape up the filler cap opening and drain so you don't get any peanuts in the tank!

This is an email from Scott Farrell at Custom Flame Painting describing how he will deal with the tank decals:

Pete,

Thanks for the reply!

Just to make sure you understood on the stripping part of the job that where the decals where, they would be stripped down to bare metal as this is the best way to eliminate the decals and "feather" it into the original paint, so basically both sides would be stripped to bare metal (If you had pinstripes, this would not have to be stripped to bare metal). I was going though our emails and noticed I said "stripped", but did not mention to bare metal. As far as the rest of the job, as long as it is factory (original paint), this makes a *great* base for a new paint job.

Below are pictures of the paint job in thumbnail form. Click on any picture to get the full size view.

Progress as of April 10, 2002: