Katana Kleanup

[Veefore]

After the success of the Norton Commando I've been asked to help out with this 84-85 750 Katana popup.
The bike was in quite poor condition but runs really well and has good compression. it is never going to be a concourse queen as there are just too many things that would need replacing to bring it back to original.
The plan therefore is to make it look nice, ride nice and just be a fun bike.

At this stage the plan is for a paint job and cosmetic fix up. Once that is complete, and the motivation that comes from looking at a "pretty" bike sets in a few other things will be done.

So....
This is the starting point.
Katana Before 01.jpg

I'm a little afraid of what I will find under some of that paint. I can see that the tank stickers were painted over and in places where the clear coat has cracked or peeled I can see that it is THICK.


I actually started on this a couple of weeks ago so I will catch up the posts as I get the photos organised over the next couple of days.

[brethren22]

looks like a fun project. a tricked up katana can look bloody nice so i'm looking forward to the result!

[D.J]

will be keen to see as well

[GD Engineering (Gavin)]

Just done one for a mate....... good stuff.

[Veefore]

Rather than try to recreate an original paintjob on a bike that isn't going to be very original we decided to go with a variation on the Katana white and black. We are going to paint all the bodywork white and use a combination of gloss black, satin black and polished or brushed aluminium as the predominant colour scheme.

First thing's first, laying out the pieces that are going to be painted white.

Fairing parts before sanding.jpg

I began sanding down the rear plastic and found that it was easier to use fine glass bead and blast it to get into all the crevices.

Weekend 1 003.jpg

I also found, amazingly, that I was able to remove just the clear coat in certain areas using the blaster. Below, it has taken all the clear off the side.

Weekend 1 002.jpg

Where the blaster wouldn't remove the clear easily I had to sand. Initially I was just sanding it with 80 grit to get the base and clear coat off. That's why the fairing below looks so patchy.

Fairing sanded.jpg

As expected, once I got under the top coat there were plenty of problems.
Below is one area that has been 'glassed up. I reckon this bike has been dropped a couple of times so I am not surprised with the amount of fiberglass holding the fairing together.

24 Oct 2010 005.jpg

[Veefore]

Cont.

There was also another crack in the fairing that I'll have to fix before I can paint.

Cracked fairing.jpg

First priority though is the tank.
I whacked it into the blast cabinet and gave it a shot around the filler lid and the other places that are really hard to get into and sand.

It came as no surprise that I wasn't going to be able to do a scuff and squirt job. With that many layers of paint and primer it would crack in no time.

24 Oct 2010 003.jpg

I spent ages sanding with 80 grit paper and found that the clear coat was unbelievably hard to sand through and that the base coat would just melt and clog up the sand paper. I tried 120 grit on my 7" sander but that clogged up too and couldn't get into the tighter curves.

Tank Sanded.jpg


It was watching a video on you tube that night that I discovered the poly abrasive discs. So the first thing I did on Sunday morning was go down to Bunnings and get one.
It was amazing. I ripped the paint right off and left a shiny but scuffed surface, ready to start filling.

Tank after poly disc.jpg

[loldreagon]

I purchased a bosch mouse sander to do my fairings, heaps quicker then sanding by hand!



for the tank I used a wire brush on 5" grinder, messy but quick.

[Veefore]

Once I had the tank cleaned down and could see the extent of the damage I knew I had a lot of work ahead of me. I went through a LOT of filler but 90% of it ended up on the floor as dust. What is on there now is thin but it is extensive.

Left side of the tank after applying filler.

Left side of tank after filling.jpg


Right side after applying filler.

Right side of tank after filler.jpg

Left side after sanding most of the filler off.

Left side of tank after some sanding of filler.jpg

Right side after sanding.

Right side of tank after sanding.jpg

The black lines in some of the photos are from a felt pen. Because of the amount of damage and the total area that I had to cover with filler it would have been easy to lose some of the contour lines. To make sure that I didn't I marked them out where I could see them and then also drew them onto the other side. By looking from above and the front etc. I was able to ensure that the contours stayed true.

The view from above the tank.

Tank from above.jpg

The filling and sanding actually went on 3 times. Apply, sand, apply more, sand more, apply even more, sand even more.

And that was where I finished for the weekend. After that I went and played golf at Araluen.

Next weekend I hope to finish the tank, though I'll only have one day at it as I have other commitments on Saturday.

[Veefore]

Thanks for the comments Brethren, DJ and GD.

loldreagon, I actually have a 5" random orbital, 1/3 sheet flat orbital and the 7" sander/polisher and none of them were really that useful for getting into the tight areas. One of those detail sanders might have been a better choice.

[Veefore]

I didn't get a lot of time to work on the bike this weekend so I don't have much to add.

I decided to start out with something easy for the day and got the side panels and mudguards into plastic primer.
Guards and side panels in plastic primer.jpg

I was really struggling to get both sides of the tank the same shape. There are so many compound curves, some convex, some concave and running in to each other. So I went to Bunnings on sunday morning and bought a contour gauge a bit like the one below.

contourgauge.jpg

With the contour gauge I was able to see where the differences really were between the two sides and have now gotten the two tank sides MUCH closer in shape than they were before. It is probably overkill as it was hard to see the difference between the two sides before but I'll know and it'll always bug me.
Below is the tank in etch primer. I will probably treat the first layer of etch primer as a guide coat since I have plenty and it is cheaper than buying more paint for a guide coat. Being black it really showed up where the pin holes and other imperfections were.

Tank in etch primer.jpg

[Veefore]

The next job was to fix the crack in the fairing.

I would have preferred to plastic weld it but this fairing has previously been fixed with fibreglass and the crack was right at the edge of it. I haven't done an fibreglassing work for a long time so it was fun to try it again.

First off I cut some strips to cover the area. I ground the into the crack to open it up a bit and give the fibreglass somewhere to go. Then I soaked the area with resin and layed on 4 layers of chopped strand mat. three on the inside and one on the outside.

From the inside

Inside fibreglassed fairing.jpg

and the view from the outside.

Fibreglassed fairing from outside.jpg

After it dried I trimmed it down and began sanding to smoothe the area. Most of this area will be covered by a plastic panel but I still wanted to get it right so that the panel would sit correctly.

[Veefore]

Not a lot to show for the last 2 weekends work. The tank on the Katanas have so many curves blending from concave to convex and back again that I have spent the last two weeks filling, sanding, filling sanding and filling again to try to get the shape just right.
I have also found another crack in the fairing that will need to be fixed. Whether by fibreglassing over it or plastic welding. I don't have any filler rod so if someone has a broken fairing piece lying around that I could cut some slivers off to use that would be appreciated.

Anyway, Pics

Rear seat unit in primer and guide coat.

Rear seat unit in guide coat.jpg

Fairing in guide coat. It was while sanding the guide coat that the previously hidden crack opened up. I'll get a photo of that next weekend.

Fairing in guide coat.jpg


I'm also starting to have second thoughts about doing it in the custom white and black monochrome kind of look and starting to think about doing it in the original Katana scheme, either white and black or silver.

White and Black

1984_GSX750S_Katana_520.jpg

Silver

1985_GSX750SE_Katana_450.jpg

[Fastgirl]

Loving watching this come together.

[potato]

there's a lot of hard work and commitment going on there good stuff!

[CBT]

Great instructions for prep work there. I have 4 sanders at home including a tiny delta headed one for detail work, but they are no where near as effective as a fibre disc. The discs give a great result.
These bikes have great styling and are worth the effort you are putting into the bodywork.
Air cooled engine will also look excellent with the right highlighting polishing etc

[Veefore]

There wasn't been a lot of progress on this bike over the last couple of months due to illness and a flare up of a back injury.
I did manage to get some work done over the last couple of weekends.

I went out to buy a new spray gun because the 20 year old little touch up gun that I have been using for so long really struggles with modern paints.

So I bought this:
New Spray Guns.jpg

It is a three pack that has a 1.7mm gun for Primer, a 1.4mm gun for base/clear coat and a 1mm touch up gun for those fiddly little jobs.
So far I have been really happy with the two larger guns.

I also bought this:

3M Dry Guide.jpg

Probably a waste of money for a Pro but I found it much better than using a splattery lacquer guide goat. Basically it looks to be a graphite based system that you rub onto the surface and it gets right into every single nook and cranny. It even shows up sanding scratches from 360 grit paper.

Here is a of photo of it in use.

Guide Coated Front Fender.jpg

In the past I had so many rub-throughs and missed spots when I couldn't see just where I had wet-sanded but with this stuff, I can literally see exactly when I have sanded the area enough. Some areas took very little rubbing and others took quite a lot. There is no way I would have been so precise using lacquer.

The next thing I needed was an suitable area to spray where I wasn't going to get overspray on everything. I ran some cables below the ceiling of the shed and using some bulldog clips that I stole from work and some $1.50 drop sheets from Bunnings I made myself a spray booth.

Spray Booth.jpg

This has worked really well so far.

[Veefore]

So, today was the day I got to do some real painting.

My plan for today was to finish sanding all of the parts down with 800 grit wet or dry and get the base coat sprayed.

That plan changed when I unmasked the tank and found that it was extremely rusty inside.

Rust In Petrol Tank.jpg

So this morning I went down to the local road works and grabbed half a bucket of fine blue metal. I washed it then put it in the tank and gave it a good shake for about 15 minutes to loosen up any rust scales. Then I went to Bunnings and bought some Hydrochloric Acid and put that in it. I let it sit with 1lt of it in for 2 hours then rotated the tank. After eventually rotating it every way I could I emptied out the acid and flushed it with water to neutralize.
Then I poured some engine oil and petrol in there and splashed it around to coat the entire inside of the tank to prevent further rust.

Due to the 3M Dry Guide I found a couple of blemishes in the fairing that I had previously missed so I decided to put that aside for the time being and just concentrate on the side panels, front guard and rear seat unit today.

I gave them a good wipe down with some wax and grease remover then set them up in the booth for 4 thin layers of base coat.

Normally I would have left the parts in base coat and done the graphics but this time I decided to clear over the base coat so that in the event that something should not be right, it would be easier to fix on top of the much harder clear coat than it would be on the uncatalyzed base coat.

Here are the parts with 4 layers of base coat and 4 thin single layers of clear coat.
Because the guns I was using were new I was being very cautious and as such there is a bit more orange peel than I would have liked but as I will be applying the graphics and then clearing again I should be able to smooth it out then.

Front Guard and Side Panels Painted.jpgSeat Unit Painted.jpg



And thanks to my friend and helmet painter extraordinaire Rod here are the stencils made up read for airbrushing.

Stencils.jpg

My plans for next weekend are to get the tank and fairing ready for paint and the following week to airbrush the graphics.

[Veefore]

I managed to put a couple of hours in this week after work.

When I was de-rusting the tank with Hydrochloric acid I accidently spilt some onto the tank. This is the result after I had scraped the damaged primer and body filler away.

Acid Damage on tank.jpg


And this is the tank now after a lot of work and in etch primer.

Tank Completely in Etch Primer.jpg

The fairing needed a bit more work to so I filled the low spots.

More Fairing Repairs.jpg

sprayed it in plastic primer.

Fairing with Plastic Primer.jpg

[Veefore]

Yesterday I re-primed the tank and fairing then gave the previously painted parts a light sanding. I was probably silly of me but I had already clear coated the painted parts for two reasons. One was so that I would be painting the logos onto a much tougher clear coat rather than softer base coat in case something went wrong and secondly just for practice with my new gun.

Anyway, after priming the tank and fairing it was time to put the KATANA logo onto the rear panel.

I only had a small image from the 'net to go on to work out where the logo was supposed to be located as I have never seen a white Katana in person before and had no idea where I would find one to measure up. So using that image and a "best guess" I started by carefully measuring where I wanted the logo to go and applying the template that my friend cut up for me.

Katana Side Panel Stencil.jpg

Here is the panel completely masked up to make sure that no overspray could get anywhere it wasn't supposed to.

Side Katana Masked.jpg

Airbrushing the logo. I probably did about 6 coats with the airbrush to ensure that I got even coverage but I also concentrated the spray towards the middle of the letters to try to keep the film build as low as possible at the edges so that they wouldn't show up too much when I clear coated.

Airbrushing the KATANA logo.jpg

Here is the panel partially unmasked.

Unmasking Katana Logo.jpg

And with the stencils removed. I am quite happy with the way that they came out.


Katana Side Logo.jpg

The next step will the the AERODYNAMIC 750 logo that will partially overlap the KATANA logo.

That's it for this weekend. Today I am off for a well earned break to play golf.

FORE!

[hibbz]

Man this is some good work, your attention to detail is immense keep up the good work! My dad used to have one of these back in the day, some good memorys surrounding it