I don't remember how the idea came about, but we got talking one time, and a good buddy of mine, Badkarma, suggested I use vinyl decals to re-color part of my tail section. He happened to have some extra white vinyl laying around that he sent over to me to try. That was 6 years ago. I applied the vinyl, cut with an exacto knife, to cover that grey part of the tail section. Since I liked the prominent white elsewere on the bike,
and since I had installed a white undertail and white hugger, it seemed that the bike would look much better if I could repaint that part white. It turned out that applying white vinyl decals was easier, and the result is fantastic. 6 years later it still looks as good as new, and the adhesive hasn't weakened at all. Take a look at the comparison views above
Click the thumbnail images below for full-sized photos. More images below likewise
note that in most of these pictures the upper grey part was not covered yet, but above, in the "after" picture, you can see how nice it looked once I got that part done also.
The vinyl I used came from Tricktape.com. Take a look there - they have headlight covers and some other cool stuff for your sportbike.
I was surprised at how good the final result looked. It took a little work to accomplish this, but the process is much simpler than repainting and clearcoating, with much less potential to seriously screw up your bike. The advantage, of course, is that if you mess it up, you can just blow a heat gun on it and remove it any time you want.
With some extra vinyl left over, I made this design to put on my tail section. Pretty cool, eh? See if you know what it's called, and if you want the answer, hold your mouse over the link below:
ANSWER
Comments
Working with vinyl on a curved cowling, is far from easy. I suspect that painting would really NOT have taken any longer, probably about the same time actually. But painting requires some real expertise with paint color matching, wet sanding, buffing, and clearcoat application. In that regard, this is simpler. It takes a great bit of finesse to cut this stuff properly for the pattern on the tail, then to apply it you have to go very slowly , using a heat gun to stretch it while you're pulling it tight and removing air bubbles. Really not an easy task, but I like the final appearance.
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