Sick of the dark blue colour

Well I have a fork brace coming and I need to remove the fork guard things where the brace will bolt to, I didn't want to cut them off so I had to remove the whole kit n kaboodle, while I was at it I decided to do something about this boring dark blue colour on the K7 1250 that everyone else has, it's been urking me for the whole year that I've owned it. How am I gonna liven it up, boring black, while I thought long n hard over the colour I settled on gloss black, I considered matt black but in the end I'm going with gloss. I have the paint in stock which also swayed me to black. While it's obviously still dark, well, dark-er, I reckon black will go well with the red rim strips I wanna put on, thinking of painting the side covers red but not sure on that yet, it might be too much. 
Seeing as I don't want the bike off the road right now I decided to just do the front guard, I'll just wack it back on tomorrow and pull the guard back off in the future to wet sand n buff because I'm using old school acrylic lacquer which takes a while to go hard, I put 2 coats primer, 2 black and 8 clear coats for a deep mirror shine. Here's a pic with 2 coats of clear, will be putting a coat of clear on every 1/2 hour till I have 8 on.
I'm going to do the rest in stages as the inclination takes me, I just thought I'd do the guard seeing as I had it off. Glad to have begun to ditch the dark blue at last.

Your bike will also be quicker now it's black ................everyone knows black is the fastest colour     Looks good Nic .

paul wrote:Your bike will also be quicker now it's black ................everyone knows black is the fastest colour     Looks good Nic .

Thanks Paul, I thought red was the fastest. Anyway it's gonna be some time before I get it all done, probably Autumn will hook in n do the lot?

Nice work, Nic. 
Have you considered vinyl wrap,  for your colour change? 
Cheap. Relatively easy to use. Easy to remove, to take bike back to original.  (I'm always sus on a bike that has been painted,  even if the owner says it was just for a colour change. )
Comes in every colour under the sun. 
I've done the carbon fiber vinyl wrap on a car bonnet,  as it was clear coat faded, and it came up a treat.

Nic 2 wrote:

paul wrote:Your bike will also be quicker now it's black ................everyone knows black is the fastest colour     Looks good Nic .

Thanks Paul, I thought red was the fastest. Anyway it's gonna be some time before I get it all done, probably Autumn will hook in n do the lot?

RED ?? ..................You'll be sent to your room without any supper if you keep that up .

Bosco15 wrote:Nice work, Nic. 
Have you considered vinyl wrap,  for your colour change? 
Cheap. Relatively easy to use. Easy to remove, to take bike back to original.  (I'm always sus on a bike that has been painted,  even if the owner says it was just for a colour change. )
Comes in every colour under the sun. 
I've done the carbon fiber vinyl wrap on a car bonnet,  as it was clear coat faded, and it came up a treat.

I've seen it done on the TV, no I want paint, stuck in the past as I am. I'm not worried about non original, the bike's worth next to nothing and I'll probably keep it for a while, I've just bought the fork brace and Cogent rear shock, and have arrow headers on lay-by so I've spent a bit on it lately, rego and rear tyre next so will hold onto it for a while. I think it will look a whole lot better with a nice mirror black paint job, to be honest, I don't like the look of modern bikes n I have trouble thinking of ways to improve the look of this one. I much prefer the look of my old Honda but the Bandit is something else to ride.

Well you've seen my Black and Gold John Player Special - that's the benchmark! 

https://nswbandits.forumotion.net/t5929-a-big-lump-of-iron-but-i-m-very-fond-of-her?highlight=fond

Ewok1958 wrote:Well you've seen my Black and Gold John Player Special - that's the benchmark! 

https://nswbandits.forumotion.net/t5929-a-big-lump-of-iron-but-i-m-very-fond-of-her?highlight=fond

Yeah that's a beauty mate, I do prefer the black engine to the silver. My bikes have always looked good in the past but this one I have now is a challenge, if I keep it long enough I'll maybe get it looking OK. I've never like 4:1 exhausts either, the bare side always looks, bare.

Nic 2 wrote:... I've never like 4:1 exhausts either, the bare side always looks, bare.

There was a post here somewhere about 2 years ago of a Bandit in the USA that had had a custom collector fitted and had twin Yoshi R77 cans on it. That's the only Bandit I've ever seen that had twin pipes. It looked good.

Ewok1958 wrote:

Nic 2 wrote:... I've never like 4:1 exhausts either, the bare side always looks, bare.

There was a post here somewhere about 2 years ago of a Bandit in the USA that had had a custom collector fitted and had twin Yoshi R77 cans on it. That's the only Bandit I've ever seen that had twin pipes. It looked good.

Anything's possible if you've got the dough.

It doesn't seem too complicated if you know a good welder (and got cash to throw at it) :



The second video with the MTC Stainless cans has a more minimalist approach to the exhaust hangers:



Though it is twice as much to worry about if you have Givi panniers

Ah, more food for thought, thanks Barry, that's much better IMO, won't allow centre stand though, major bummer. I do know an excellent exhaust guy, he made me a couple of intermediate pieces for the Honda when I had 4:2s on it, cost was a measly $120 but he takes his time, all I did was give him a 1/4" round bar bent to the shape I wanted, very nice job, super welds. Here they are sanded, of course it then cost me another $180 for chrome

Well the weather over in the east is shit again, what a surprise, another week's worth of that mountain mist crap where I am so no spraying this week, I have the tail piece under primer and the tank is ready for rub down. While I have everything apart I thought I would spruce up the ugly black n silver fuel cap and surround, thought about chrome but polished alloy has more class IMO, will look great on the black tank and easy to keep polished. As usual the shine is way better in the flesh.

Nic 2 wrote:Well the weather over in the east is shit again, what a surprise, another week's worth of that mountain mist crap where I am so no spraying this week, I have the tail piece under primer and the tank is ready for rub down. While I have everything apart I thought I would spruce up the ugly black n silver fuel cap and surround, thought about chrome but polished alloy has more class IMO, will look great on the black tank and easy to keep polished. As usual the shine is way better in the flesh.

Nice work

Nice work. 
I'm so bloody jealous.  
My bike runs on bloody petroleum and you get to put fizzy lemon drink in yours!

Can someone go lift up your fuel cap n tell me if I have the rubber gump the right way up please 

Nic 2 wrote:Can someone go lift up your fuel cap n tell me if I have the rubber gump the right way up please 

You've done well

Thanks a heap Chook 

Paint is done now, I still need to wet sand n buff but I will do that in the winter. Also notice my new/used Arrow headers courtesy of Jaba. Bike is now at stage 3. New MRA screen with adjustable gump on order. I have had no luck with wind noise, apparently my height 6'1" puts me right in the shit stream, if the new screen does the job I'll be forked, not confident but at least I like the new black paint and I can now see that I have a good base to try and improve the looks of the bike, there's way too much silver paint and apart from my fuel cap, NO polished alloy, so a bit here, a bit there n there might be a looker in there somewhere.

Ah. Now. You need to ask Gazzar about the polishing route. 
It can become a little addictive, I believe.  
A quick search and you'll find pics of "The Mirror", Gazzar's old bike. 
He's a master polisher. In fact I do believe that he's the guy out of Terminator Two.

I'll need to procure a gasket or two n then I can do some engine covers. I'd like to do something with the silver top steering yoke as well, hell I'd like to pull the engine n paint it too. Then there's the bloody silver/grey frame  The fork legs would be a huge job but doable for sure.

I'm getting the feeling that you might have bought the wrong Bandit to begin with Nic.  

I reckon you might be right mate, it was an impulse buy and the right price at the time.

Wet sanded n buffed the tank today if anyone GAF.

Came up well Nic , good job