Well I guess it is time to talk some more about my Indian Scout renovation project. And specifically about the paint work / hell I went through, or how I like to call it now… the perfectly imperfect paint job I did all by myself!
How we got to this point?!
Let’s first recall that originally my dad refused to get the paint job done professionally. It’s important!! When we started the renovation process, it was out of the question that parts of the bike would be sent away, no matter what, or where. This changed slightly with time and the chrome and the engine but early on, it was a big fat no.
There was no way the bike paint wasn’t going to be redone. I know, I know, lots of people told me it would look so cool, with its original paint. That rust can be stabilized… It was out of the question for me. Refer back to the original reasons for such a renovation project if you wish.
So I had decided to do it myself! Crazy me! But also, I didn’t really have a choice.
Shortly after having started, I understood that my dad and I, did not have the same view on what painting the bike meant. My dad thought we would just repaint it a little, with whatever paint we could find, old dirty paint brush in hand! Of course that was out of the question on my side. And too late anyway, as, when I had such realization, I had already bought the equipment, namely a spray gun and the paint, the primers…
So I started painting and it was hard, so hard and so time consuming and yes, slightly disappointing… more on that below. But first the process.
The paint process
I’ll be stating obvious points below. Points everyone has kept on repeating to me. Thank you very much… I understood the concepts, just like everyone who gave me advises had understood them. But have they tried painting a f*@!king bike fork? Probably not a lot of them!
Spoiler alert: watching a TV show where they redo cars is not like actually doing it!
Anyway, I’m still here to tell you about how I did and what were my struggles, so if you consider doing something like this, you might do better than me.
Cleaning the parts
Painting requires surfaces that are clean and smooth like the skin of a baby’s but. That alone is a challenge. My brother had some small parts sanded at his work and yet, these still required a lot of sanding to get a smooth finish.
The bigger parts, like the mudguards, the frame or the tanks, had to be cleaned and prepared manually as my brother couldn’t sand those. Of course we used various tools, different wire brushes mounted on the drill, on my Dremel and lots and lots of sanding paper! My dad burned the paint on a lot of parts (not the tanks obviously! Never the tanks!) but that lead to more sanding being required on such parts.
At this point, I don’t think there was a single part of the bike that was just straight forward to handle. Every single part of the bike has easy to clean surfaces as well as surfaces that are a nightmare to clean. The front fork was hard to clean and hard to paint considering the shape, but the mudguards presented challenges too. Concave surfaces, weirdly angled or inaccessible bits were everywhere.
However, it’s just a matter of taking the time to do it properly. Nothing is completely impossible. It is also a matter of accepting that some bits will maybe not be perfectly smooth.
Prepping the parts
Once a part was clean, I had to paint it quickly to avoid rust coming back. I started by the mudguards, the front light, and other bits as the engine had not yet been removed from the frame.
Most professional painters seems to be hanging parts to paint them. I couldn’t do that. So most parts required 2 painting sessions to be done, except for a few very small bits, like the bolt holding the front light (!).
For example, I had to do 2 painting sessions for the mudguards. One to do the inside, one to do the outside. And since I go every 3 weeks to see my dad, it took a while, as you can guess. At least my paint was perfectly dry, when it was time to handle the other side!
To do one side of a part, I had to protect the side I didn’t want to paint by wrapping it up meticulously and filling all the little cracks and holes where paint might have gone unwantedly if I hadn’t.
That alone was fairly time consuming but actually highly satisfying!
The primers & paint
Each part received a coat of itcher, one coat of antirust (the red), 2 coat of primer (the grey) and 2 coat of paint… or more, depending on the result.
Yeah, sometimes, I messed up before even getting to the paint coat.
The paint was applied with the spray gun but all primers were in cans. It was mostly easy to apply the primers. As long as the cans were shaken properly, it was fine. But it got tricky when the can was almost empty. Suddenly droplets of primers would be shoot out and it messed up everything. I changed the nozzles between sessions but it didn’t prevent the issue.
Using the spray gun was easy at first. I was pleasantly surprised by the result. But it was actually because I did not realize what it was supposed to look like!
The stress started to build up once I understood what the result should be. And every time I got really stressed about a coat, I messed it up! Yep, obviously. So I had to wait for the paint to dry, sand it again and paint again… Breathe, breathe deeply… OK…
Anyway, repeat the process, again and again, until all is painted… That is it.
I kept the tanks for the end. I knew the paint on the tanks had to be perfect because they are probably what people see most. And I thought that, painting the rest of the bike first, would give me the required training! Ahahah!!! It didn’t!
Oh well…
In reality, the tanks are not last. I realized that the part below the saddle had to be painted as well and this isn’t done yet. Maybe next trip.
And the wheels hubs will be for next winter. Maybe I’ll redo the tanks then, maybe not.
Reproducing the Indian heads
The tanks were kept last because of the Indian heads as well. I wasn’t about to put the regular stickers you can find online. So I knew I had to repaint the Indian heads. Oh God, help me!
I was so stressed to sand out the heads. I had removed the paint from the tanks, going around the heads! It stayed like that for a while… But there was no option, I had to remove them. I almost cried when that day came.
Before doing so, I used tracing paper to recreate the shape of the tanks and drew the Indian heads on top, in order to still have their correct placements. Added some strategic measures of distance and a good measure of hope this would be enough.
Meanwhile, at home, I used Illustrator to draw the Indian heads from various pictures I had. While doing so, I realized there was differences between the left and right tanks. I pondered but chose to make some small corrections to the overall shape. In addition, I realized the SCOUT written on top of the heads, were imperfect. I knew that if I did the same, it would show way more now. So I corrected the letters alignment, spacing and little imperfections.
What I couldn’t do is to redo the little dots which seemed to surround the letters (hard to see on the picture below except maybe if you zoom in). How in the world did they do that? And I couldn’t figure out what the black traces were in the hair / feather part. For now, I didn’t add these.
Once I had finished on Illustrator, I printed several heads and the SCOUT separately so I could cut these shapes and use on the thanks.
Once the tanks were painted, I used the tracing paper tank shapes to place my paper Indian heads properly. Measure and measure again… check in a distance, compare left and right… ok, lets do this…
I first drew and painted the blue part (obviously!). Let it dry, then used the paper heads (which I had cut out where the black lines are) to draw the black lines. Let these dry and then added the white SCOUT.
And done… for now!
The result is a bit flat. There is something that seems to be missing compare to the old design. On the picture above, the original head band and part of the face looks darker but it’s only on one side. The other side was more uniform in color.
I think what may be missing is the wear out. It might be too new! I don’t know.
My expectations were fairly high
So you may have seen some my drawing, my maps (what you haven’t??!) and although these are not absolute works of art, it shows that I usually do a fairly precise job when it come to watercolor! But at last, watercolors are not the same as polyurethane enamel paint. Ha, ha, big revelation here!
All the excuses I found
To justify the result I found plenty of excuses. My set up in the back of the garage. The lack of proper lightning, the temperature, the lack of ventilation, the stress, my dad home made air compressor which air pressure varied so much… To be honest, all of these did have an impact on the end result. I’m not kidding, I had to hold the spray gun in one hand and a lamp in the other to see what I was doing! That really didn’t help.
But I also have to admit that my lack of experience and expertise is mostly to blame for the end result. I already said that in my previous update but it’s important I say it here again!
It doesn’t matter anymore!
I’m happy!
I’ve decided that every flaws is to be considered as deliberate and a reminder of the vintage origin of the Bike!
And it’s not that bad! There are flaws, yes. But these are not all terribly bad. The worst bits, I redid of course. A professional painter would probably disagree with my statement.
It doesn’t matter, as no-one will see these flaws when I’m riding!
The really good thing is that the paint is strong. Really strong. It chipped in some places, while rebuilding, but not a whole lot. The bike is well protected for the years to come and that was the main goal.
Let’s just appreciate what is good for now and not focus and what isn’t perfect!!
It is very minty green so I might call the bike Minty!? What do you think?
PS: the more time passes, the more I curse, sorry about that!
You’ve done an amazing job, well done!
Thank you! You are too kind! 🙏🙏🙏