I have seen a few original shadows over the years long before "restoring" raised its ugly head,and I don't recall ever seeing one with painted rocker caps,maybe I missed something.The picture in the front of Paul Richardsons book clearly depicts an unpainted chaincase cap.Why would you paint a part that was intended to be removed regularly with the tool kit spanner.By the way I love mechanical restoration,I see most of the rest as the destruction of a bikes' history.Head down!
Pyluminising the unknown practice....
- Thread starter greg brillus
- Start date
Is it possible that these covers were used as the blanks to mask off the holes, and simply painted over.....I guess we need to know more about the history of Magnetoman's Shadow, though I'm not trying to pry into something he may not wish to discuss. The paint thickness is very interesting.....I found the first of the two vintage aircraft we stripped and repainted, the first painted in US paints a top notch aircraft paint, verses the second aircraft painted in a more industrial grade 2 pac paint, the thickness difference between the two was quite amazing. I seem to remember the first measured about 0.002 to 0.0025 thickness, and the second averaged out at around 0.004 The extra thickness made a significant difference to the weight. Perhaps these caps were painted due to the shortage of masking tape in the factory, at that time......
I was also wondering why it was deleted when it also received 3 "Thank You"s
The relevant history of my 1950 Shadow is unknown but not secret. I bought it 20 years ago in completely unrunning condition from someone who in turn had bought it a few years earlier from someone else in the same condition. Without digging out the paperwork that came with it I have a vague recollection from when I bought it that I wasn't sure if that owner had been the original one or not, but that he had owned it from at least the early 1950s. Anyway, the story told to me was that it had been off the road since at least the early 1960s due to an accident, with the "original" owner (i.e. not the guy who sold it to me) always intending to restore it until age finally imposed reality on that intention. Whether or not the story of the years off the road is true, all of the fasteners one would expect to show signs of abuse due to routine maintenance (changing tires, batteries, etc.) are in excellent condition, consistent with a machine that had been in frozen animation since the early 1960s.
Absent some other evidence to the contrary surfacing I'm certainly willing to accept that those caps were painted after leaving the factory. Unfortunately, a head or timing cover doesn't fit on the stage of a microscope making it a lot more difficult to acquire micrographs of those. Difficult, but not impossible. I can achieve magnifications up to ~20x with a macro lens + bellows, but now we're talking quite a bit more time to set things up than it took to slip a valve cover onto the stage of an inverted microscope. This is what I had in mind when I wrote in my earlier post that I probably would do more with this in the future. Just not the immediate future.
I have found quite a lot of machines that I have seen that came to Australia from the USA to have very little original mileage on them. Indeed the 74 Bonneville I had which came from North Carolina had barely done 10,000 miles from new. The Rapide I bought back in 07 came from the Bronx in NY was a Harpers rebuild...I would say from what I could see, that it had travelled about 6500 miles in it's reincarnated life.....So these bike also showed minimal damage to hardware from past owners. The black paint on your inspection caps may well be original if not certainly old...But I doubt if the bike left the factory with them. At some stage when you progress with your restoration you will need to decide how you are going to repaint all your parts, and I would find it highly unlikely that you will dip the parts, as the volume of paint would be extremely expensive. Some things are just too hard to duplicate from original....And I know you want to do a top job. I can only suggest you paint the parts like I do, as I know others recommend the use of spray cans.....Or powder coating.......these later two work ok I guess, but they are not my choice.....every one has their own preference, but years of restoration of many things has taught me enough. It is the finish of the Pylumin of covers and cases that I would like to see more pictures of. Cheers.....Greg.
I'm currently restoring a particular BSA with a self-imposed goal of "museum quality" for every step. Not that it's always attainable, but it is my goal with that bike. However, 'perfection' is the enemy of 'good enough'. As you say, with paint one either buys a 55 gallon drum of high quality paint, dips the components like the factory did, then dump the remaining 54 gallons down the drain, or seeks a 'good enough' alternative. For me, like you, spray cans and powder paint are simply not options.
"Luckily" for me, lots of mechanical work remains to be done so I have time (lots of time...) before I'll have to deal with the paint issue. In addition to the issue of which brand/type of black paint to use that will remain its color and specularity for a long time, my concern is being sure that whatever surface treatment or primer is involved will adhere tenaciously to the Al through heating and cooling cycles.
I know this may not be the case, and of course everyone is different, but my advice to you Magnetoman is, do not take forever trying to perfect everything. If you take another 20 years to rebuild your Shadow in an effort to perfect everything, you may likely become to old to even ride it..!! With the availability of parts better than probably ever before, and the quality of some products available now, there really is no excuse other than time/money of which a rebuild can be very costly, but not so bad if you do a lot yourself. With the help of the many experienced folk on this forum, and other members more local to yourself.....You sound more than capable of doing a top job. Start doing one section at a time......Start paint stripping the parts, collect up all the hardware and dress off any burrs and nicks, then buff them up so you can send them off for re plating ( in Cadmium if you are lucky enough to be able to get it done) You will find you can progress rather quickly if you do something regularly, not just once a month. I'm not trying to be a nag, just trying to help you get on with it. I am currently restoring 2 Black Shadows at the moment.....It takes up all my spare time....Well I have to do something between races, next one in three weeks......Greg. PS: Sorry for drifting off topic a bit.
Yea, what Greg said!! I have taken 30 years messing about with my B Rapide engine, now I am catching up, as previously stated, my life is running out!
Alodine & Alochrom are both trade names for chromic acid solutions applied to aluminium before paint. Trev was on the right track about timing, we were taught 24 hours rather than 30 minutes between alodining & painting.
The process we used was, for used parts, trich vapour bath (yes, another great thing become extinct) then left to cool, followed by scrubbing components clean in a soap solution, also used for new components, until we had a "water break free surface" which means that when you run clean water over them, there is no breakaway between the water & the surface. Break away indicates oil on the surface. That was followed by immersion in chromic acid solution for 5-10 minutes until the item discoloured to a straw colour. Then wash & dry & make it the painter's problem.
If you (can) buy chromic acid powder for making your own solution, wear dust mask breathing protection, gloves, disposable overalls & wash extremely well. Chromic acid dust in your lungs is extremely dangerous!
Better still, do what Trev does, make it someone else's problem!
Alodine & Alochrom are both trade names for chromic acid solutions applied to aluminium before paint. Trev was on the right track about timing, we were taught 24 hours rather than 30 minutes between alodining & painting.
The process we used was, for used parts, trich vapour bath (yes, another great thing become extinct) then left to cool, followed by scrubbing components clean in a soap solution, also used for new components, until we had a "water break free surface" which means that when you run clean water over them, there is no breakaway between the water & the surface. Break away indicates oil on the surface. That was followed by immersion in chromic acid solution for 5-10 minutes until the item discoloured to a straw colour. Then wash & dry & make it the painter's problem.
If you (can) buy chromic acid powder for making your own solution, wear dust mask breathing protection, gloves, disposable overalls & wash extremely well. Chromic acid dust in your lungs is extremely dangerous!
Better still, do what Trev does, make it someone else's problem!
I'm more than capable of being a "selective perfectionist," although I always try to work to at least a good standard. As for my spare time, in addition to my Vincent I'm also actively restoring (as opposed to pretend restoring, which I've been doing with several bikes for several decades...) a BSA as described at:
http://www.britbike.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=496950#Post496950
If you make it through that thread far enough to read my post of 09/23/13 you will find my reason for why I'm using a perfectionist approach with it.
I finally got (re)started on my Vincent a year ago but moving to a new house this summer effectively stopped all progress from the time we made an offer on the house in July until now. Added to the slowdown was earlier this month I felt compelled to buy a second Gold Star, and now I feel compelled to get it completely ready so I can ride it (I like to ride this old stuff as well as restore it). Anyway, perfectionism hasn't been holding back my Vincent restoration. Having too many other things to do has been. But, ever optimistic, 2015 will see major progress with it.