1977 Ducati 900 Super Sport

So this old scoot was fun to paint. These Ducati's are one to be had for sure. Classic lines and styles of the Italian motorcycle architecture. I filmed and edited the video. I've known Craig, current owner, a few years now and he's quite an avid collector. He frequents the Mid America Auction particularly the one in Las Vegas every year in January. Notably one of the largest for the year of strictly Motorcycles of all years, makes and models. He ended up with two of these rather iconic and cool old Ducati's. The paint is Chroma Base DuPont with the colors best depicting and is as close to the original as can possibly be matched by a skilled paint mixing master. Not me actually. I layed down the paint but not after a butt load of sanding by Craig himself. Surface prep is 90% of the paint job in my book. Or damn close anyway. So here's the video that better depicts how well it came out.

Or you can watch a high def vid here   http://vimeo.com/31922427

Honda in Blue, almost?

As work continues so do the ideas. When you have such a template to work with all sorts of thoughts poor into our head. The oil tank, in this case, was all Mikes ideas. He went to our local Surplus City and found a fire extinguisher and hence forth and now, oil tank. Since him calling the side, original, oil tank a "colostomy bag", that pretty much did it for me to get it the hell off there. Ok, there was some aesthetics in mind over that as well, but still. So far no paint in mind, or it might, or who knows what. That's the beauty of all these kinds of projects. Now were kicking around a turbo for the future. Since that's one of my specialties. I think we'll just get her running first drive it for awhile, maybe enjoy whatever the hell is left of summer and tackle that one later! Fortunatelly, we have great weather here and by god, we take advantage of it. It do get cold here as well. So this posting is just a bit of an update and how it's coming along. I think we have a good balance going with the fenders where the wiring will get cleaned up as well. Hasta for now. Be sure to click on the pix for mondo larger viewing.
Watch a short video of the build:
http://vimeo.com/33324909

Proto bike...almost

As with all things, it takes awhile. With this thing, it's taking forever! Now working on lots of electronics as you will notice on the video. Hoping July will see it running and on the road for the dog and pony show. Here's a link to my other blog discussing more in details about whats behind this and more.

Transformation

  Transformation continues for this old 1977 Honda 750 Four. Yes it was a putrid yellow and then we painted it a House of Colors Tribal Blue. It's build is somewhere earlier in this blog somewhere. Now it has a new owner who found that a Cafe Racer was more his liking. Mike, his actual name, (yea, sometimes ambiguity has it's place, but not this time) a long time motor head and extremely familiar with British cars, has a new hankerin for a "Rocker" mobile. A "Mod" is not his style, which if your not familiar with the term, well then "plug in man".  So now it's cuttin and grinding time and more thought going into it than I would ever thought imaginable. Unlike most of my past race car or street rod mod, this actually isn't a bunch different. Other than I'm liking the smaller dimensions! I've built so many big 4x4's this is a great change! The motor on this little dude is getting new slugs in larger barrels, some chamber work and some needed overhaul goodies. We're cleaning up the frame and it will be blue as well. We may add some flair to the already existing paint, but we'll see. It's all up to the Hefe' and a little collaboration from me. We keep coming up with new ideas as we go, I guess that's the norm anyway. Obviously lowered and having some typical Cafe expectations with maybe a hint of Bobber as well. Yea, I know I wasn't going to do this anymore and I have plenty to do...but damn it's a lot of fun.   ps: when you get down to the end of the blog click on "older posts" to see other projects. Also you can click on the photos to see rather large renderings!