Back in March I decided I had been working for somebody else for too long, I had also been spending far too long travelling and living out of a suitcase. Time is passing by and as I head towards the half century I want to wake up and enjoy what I am doing. Its decision time what it is I should do? I enjoy Football, Motorbikes and Beer! Well I am too old and ‘lardy’ to be a footballer; I know how to drink beer but can’t make a living at that, so I kept coming back to motorbikes. I could be a salesman selling Harleys, but that means working for someone else. I don’t really enjoy taking them to bits, but then I saw an advert for air-brush courses in BSH and that’s where it started.

I went to Northern Ireland and trained with Simon Murray on the new range of Auto Air paints which are water based and pass the new EC regulations on toxicity. They have many advantages in that by applying heat from an air gun you can dry them very quickly and move on to your next colour. Additionally, colours can be changed very quickly in the airbrush, with snap-on bottles, where you remove one pot, clip in a water bottle and blast this through for 4 seconds to clean and then change it for the new colour and ready to go. These are major time and cost savers. All work is then lacquered and polished with about 4 coats of clear to give a high quality finish.

The bike below is my 1976 Yamaha FS1E, originally bought at the end of 2003, so it has taken almost 2 years to (nearly) get it on the road. The paintjob here is a mix of Auto Air and conventional aerosol, which goes to prove you can mix different paints.

The process I used was extensive as the original tank was dented and rusty, hence I had to strip it down to bare metal. Rust was treated with Jenolite, dents filled with Isopon then the tank was primed with Hammerite Smooth because of its ability to prevent rust re-appearing. I then applied a grey aerosol primer to this before painting the Yamaha ‘Competition Yellow‘.

Now the fun started. This was flatted to take the black and white designs in Auto Air. I first marked out the black and white ‘speed blocks’ for the side of the tank and painted the complete white stripe, then laid the black template in Frisk Film. Having done this I then completely masked out the back half of the tank and cut an edge for the chequered flag and painted all in white. I then re-masked this ‘white flag’ and drew the waving chequers (3 times, ‘cos I didn’t like the first 2). This was then cut with a scalpel and resulting template airbrushed black. Once the masking tape was removed I added the shadows in and around the flag with transparent black. I then had templates cut in vinyl for the Yamaha names on each side of the tank and also my own logo on the top.

This was then taken to a local spray shop where they lacquered and polished the resultant tank. This tankadvertises the fact that I can re-paint classics and also paint customs all in one!

**This is an old FS1E tank (most oldies will say ‘I had one of them’) which was rusty and stripped to bare metal. There is not a sticker in sight, it is all done by masking and airbrushing!**

The ‘Before’ picture

Tox