One of several 196os Simson Schwalbes I spotted. You don't see many of these in the US.

One of the benefits of my job is that I often get to travel (I’m writing this from Portland, OR.) Occasionally that travel takes me out of the country and last week I was lucky enough to spend three whirlwind days in Munich, Germany.

Munich is quite the two-wheeled city with one of the most extensive bicycle path networks in the world. Between traditional pedal-pushers to roller-bladers to our favorite form of transport, scooters, it’s a city with more on its mind that the fine cars of German automobiling.

Typical of any European city, the scooters I saw were a mix of vintage, modern, oddities and the expected. But one thing I was not prepared for was just how many beautifully restored vintage Vespas there are in the Bavarian city. The Germans have a very active restoration and customization scene, as any reader of the UK magazine Scootering can attest, but boy was I still surprised at some of the beauties I saw even in my quick trip.

Seriously, I saw more painstakingly restored Vespa Rallys, Primaveras, and 50 Specials whiz by me on the street, than I could catch to photograph at the side of the pavement. For seventy-two hours I was in Vespa heaven.

Most of these restorations – no doubt – are due to the superb Vespa maintenance and restoration shop in the southern ward of the city, Vesbar. Vesbar has a fantastic collection of oldies in stock and for sale from beautiful patina originals to shining ground-up restorations and three-wheeler Piaggio Apes. It’s well worth a visit if you’re in the city and the pleasant thirty minute walk from the central old town area is a welcome chance to duck away from the tourists for a couple of hours. Entering the store feels like every last vintage bike has been sucked out of nearby northern Italy, flowing through Vesbar as a clearing house for the rest of the world. If you’re a German speaker you can also follow Vebar’s activities at their Facebook page.

Following is a quick selection of bikes I was able to snap during my brief stay in the city:

A blinged up Vespa P200.

One of several PK50s I spotted.

An Aprilia Mojito modern / retro scooter.

A beautiful side-street find!

I have no idea what's under the custom fur trim, but I love it. Any guesses?

A 50 Special waits patiently for its owner outside a sidewalk cafe.

A department store display for Italian coffee.

A beautifully restored Primavera.

Just like everywhere else in the world, the P-series are the workhorses of Piaggio. Check out that load.

Another beautifully restored 50 Special.

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Two coats of Rust-oleum mix rolled on with a micro-fiber roller. Not bad at all.

In short, the cowls looked great. Hardly any runs, or “orange peel” texture from the application of the paint. Because it was still light I was able to take them outside to scrutinize them thoroughly. The coverage for two coats was in no way complete but it was much deeper than my previous attempt with four coats of rattle can and very smooth considering it was rolled on not sprayed. The next step in the process is a wet-sand to smooth out any imperfections before moving on to coats 3 and 4. Ideally I need 600 grit paper for this but I didn’t have any at hand, so I used a slightly more aggressive 400 grit wet-sandpaper. This, in combination with the paint coverage revealed that in all my back-and-forth will filling, priming and sanding I still had a couple of depressions in the metal.

At this point I’ve gotten the hang of the filler technique. My mistake before had been putting it on too thick and then having to aggressively sand it, which opened up the problem of sanding it too flat back into the original dent. This time I put it on real thin and only just covered the depression, allowing me (after drying) to give it a gentle smooth out with wet-sanding, and then a more aggressive sanding only on the edges of the repair, feathering in the filler into the surrounding paint work. Much better.

After wet-sanding the two coats, and feathering in the filler.

Reading up on the Rust-oleum method, folks who had tried it had said not only can you add filler directly on top of the paint (which I did) but also paint directly over the filler without primer, so I washed the cowls down one last time and gave them their third coat of the Rust-oleum mix. Again, the coverage looked even and smooth so I put them aside to dry.

More progress
This allowed me to turn my attention to the horn cover which I had removed a few days back. I’d done this as an experiment to see how my painting skills were on a small part of the bike that hadn’t required any filling or sanding. This had also had two coats of Rust-oleum mix but due to the steep curves, had suffered some runs. After wet-sanding these out I added a third coat, again the coverage was good, and the self-leveling nature of the paint mix quickly revealed a glassy surface.

The horn cover after the third coat of Rusto-oleum mix.

The 50/50 Rust-oleum "Signal Red," mineral spirits mix.

The glove box
I’m going to remove the head-set (handlebar housing) when I have some daylight and more time on my hands because I also want to use this opportunity to drop the front forks and wheel out of the bike for a clean-up. This therefore leaves me with one last easily detachable item for now – the glove box. The box comes off easy enough. It’s attached by four bolts inside the box. I bagged these up and set them aside. The rubber is a little perished, but I’ll hang on to this for now because I haven’t found a supplier that has a replacement yet so may have to reuse it.

The glove box was suffering two issues:

First, at some point in it’s history either the owner, or someone more nefarious had tried to pry open the lock with a screwdriver. While the lock still works, it’s beat up, the lip around the door is also bent where a screwdriver (or similar) was inserted to jimmy open the door. I have ordered a replacement barrel and key from Scooterworks to take care of the lock. The bent rim required a little bit of nuanced bending with a pair of vice grips to get it back into shape. My first attempt at addressing metal work on the scooter (something the leg-shield would need more of.)

Second, at some point in the scooter’s history, someone had added some detachable speakers or something because the adhesive from two large Velcro pads on the top of the box had eaten away at the paint and into the metal. Some sanding with 60 grit, then 140 grit paper, then wet-sanding with 400 grit to blend the work soon took care of this. By now I was getting pretty good with knowing how much to sand and how.

The glove box after sounding out the rust.

After washing down the box, and priming with the Rust-oleum spray primer, this too was ready for a lick of paint – its first coat of the Rust-oleum mix. I had given the inside of the box two quick coats of the mix the day prior where the paint job doesn’t need to be so perfect, freeing me up to do a better cosmetic job on the outside of the box.

After priming, the first coat of Rust-oleum mix gets rolled on.

The foot-board
With the paint now left to dry, and with plenty of daylight left, I turned my attention to the bike proper. Next target to address – the rusty foot-board. To get at this, I’d first need to remove the floor rails.

The foot-board (after removing the rubber) needs some attention.

Having read JPM’s restoration stories, I knew that the rubber strips would pull right out. These are pretty perished and cheap and easy to replace, so while I’m keeping them for now, I will probably replace the entire set which will make a huge cosmetic improvement for little cash. The end-caps are made of a harder plastic and required a bit more force to loosen.These got chewed up in the process of removal.

The rubber pulls right out of the floor-rails by hand.

The chrome strips themselves are riveted into the main frame. JPM suggested these come out easy enough by slipping a flat-bladed screwdriver underneath them and giving it a whack with a hammer. While this is a classic bodge-job approach, he’s right. The rivets are relatively soft and quickly sheared under pressure releasing all of the floor rails in under 15 minutes. I then used a small hole punch to knock the remainder of the rivets through the body and onto the ground.

After removing the rails. Along the right edge, the sheared rivets still sit in the holes.

With the foot-board now free of the rails I was able to go at it with a wire-brush and then coarse sandpaper. Thankfully this revealed that the rust was not that deep and would, with the right wet-sanding and feathering likely only need primer, not filler. The very edge of the foot-board was bent here and there along the lip, so like the glove box, some tugging with a pair of vice-grips here and  brought them true. There’s definitely an art to this – a tug here, a tap there, but I got them pretty darn straight and that gave me the confidence to take a look at the warped leg-shield.

The leg-shield
With the glove box removed, the bends in the leg shield from some prior collision damage were more prominent. I removed the front turn-signal housings to expose the leg-shield further. These are attached with two bolts a-piece. The ill-fitting right turn-signal in particular demonstrated how much the leg-shield had been bent out of true.

Exposing the leg-shield to hammer it back in to shape.

Taking some advice from Restolad’s bodywork videos I set about the leg-shield. A combination of pulling by hand (vigorously), tugging at the edge with vice-grips and whacking with a hammer gradually brought the shield as true as I could get it. There’s no dent in the shield per se, it’s just warped out of it’s original line. Not having access to a “slapstick and dolly” I had to feel my way around the bend by hand. I also used the turn-signal housing as a guide as to what true should be. I think I did a pretty good job. Restolad’s “science of a dent” definitely helped me recognize that a depression has high spots as well as low spots.

With daylight fading, I cleaned up and put the scoot back under wraps. Next up will be wet-sanding all of these areas, adding some Naval Jelly to eat up any remaining rust, and spot priming.

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This car was painted to a showroom finish with $50 of materials.

A little bit of red-neck comes to NYC
Frustrated by how meticulous you need to be with the spray method, I have spent the last few days researching online how to paint a car (given there’s more conversation on the subject than painting a scoot.)

Yesterday I unearthed the phenomenon loosely known as The $50 Paint Job, or The Poor Man’s Paint Job. The concept is that it’s possible to get a showroom finish on a car using nothing but layers of Rust-oleum paint watered down with mineral spirits and a lot of elbow grease.

The idea was originally posted by Moparts.org forum member 69chargeryeehaa in answer to the question, “how do I get a paint-job done for less than $4000?” 69 had painted a Charger (great car) a number of years previously with several thinned-down layers of Rust-oleum applied with a paint roller, with generous wet-sanding between layers, finally finishing up with a thorough turtle-wax buffing to bring the paint to a shine. The big secret apparently being Rust-oleum’s ability to “self-level” to a glassy finish making the roller or brush marks disappear.

More importantly, 69 posted a photo of the finished result which flawed forum members and ignited discussion and experimentation.

Inspired by 69 many forum members and followers went on to have equally successful results. One particularly great example is “Rickwrench’s” Corvair. Even better, Rick has been able to demonstrate that the paint has held for three years and counting.

The hood of Rick's corvair, half buffed, one of the secrets to the $50 paint-job.

What interests me most about this method and its potential for a scoot paint job is the following:

• I’m really struggling with not having a professional spray booth and I haven’t even made it to the body yet.
• The fumes are killing me.
• I’m much more comfortable with a roller and/or brush than a paint-gun or spray can.
• This method would allow me to continue to approach the bike piecemeal, e.g. cowls, then fender, then headset, then main body.
• This is something I could do on the street or in my front yard when it comes to painting the main body of the scoot.
• This method might not require dropping the engine out of the bike.

Inspired, I ran out to Home Depot last night and picked up a can of Rust-oleum Signal Red, a can of 100% (odorless) mineral spirits and some high-density foam mini rollers. I’ll post photos shortly but two coats of the mix (one last night, one this morning) covered the cowls nicely (and the plastic horn cover which I have also now removed.) The true test will be in the wet sanding which comes next.

The method is detailed much better elsewhere, but in total it should be:

• 2 thin coats of the Rust-oleum/mineral spirits (mixed 50/50). Waiting for the first coat to dry before applying the second.
• Wet-sand to flat with 600 grit paper.
• Another 2 coats of the mix.
• Wet-sand with a finer 1000 grit paper.
• Another 2 coats.
• Wet-sand with a finer-still 1500 grit paper.
• Shine and buff with Turtle Wax or polishing compound and a lot of elbow-grease.

In the next update I’ll share this method in progress. Who knows, perhaps I’ll have the first scoot painted with the $50 method.

Resources:

• The original forum discussion
• Rick’s Corvair
• A gallery of other Rust-oleum experiments
• The step-by-step method
• Hot Rod Magazine’s step-by-step trial
• Actionace’s YouTube videos (These are particularly applicable, because it’s the method done on a motorcycle.)
  

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1. Once the scoot is stripped, send the parts to a local body shop for a professional respray.
2. Rent a spray gun and compressor, purchase bulk paint and do it myself.
3. Rattle-can it! Use widely available aerosol cans to attempt as best a finish as I can.

I did a lot of reading online both in favor of and against using rattle-cans. Some scooterists have suggested that with careful preparation and patience, a professional finish is possible with spray cans. JPM, whose guide I followed for the prep work so far used cans. Richard Hoar, a scooter restorer who I admire very much however has, along with many others, sworn against the rattle-can.

I’ve also gone back and forth on whether to wait until I’ve addressed all the rust and dents on the bike and do the paint job in one go, or do it piece-meal removing and painting sections of the bike as I go.

Last session I reassembled the turn-signal harnesses on the cowls thinking I was going to put them back on the bike primed but unpainted but the amount of care that’s been needed to degrease the cowls and keep them clean while I’ve been preparing them for primer convinced me that while they are off the bike I might as well give painting them a try now before I invest further in the scoot as a whole.

Time to paint
This decision pretty much led me back to the rattle-can approach. It’s unrealistic to rent and set up a spray gun for more than one session, and likewise unrealistic to send pieces out to a professional sprayer piecemeal.

A short trip to AutoZone on Atlantic Avenue bagged me a can of Dupli-color General Motors Bright Red which I eye-balled as a close match to the original color of the scoot. I had given other colors thought, but I’ve started to fall in love with the red of the scoot as it is now, and I figured covering red with red (even by way of gray primer) would be more straightforward than trying a different color.

In retrospect, the bike’s original color is more of a cherry red than the fire-engine red I have now but I’m not trying to be a purist about the original color. After reading a number of forums Dupli-color came up as the most recommended spray paint, in part because the cans are fitted with a nice nozzle that, like a paint gun, can be twisted to be either a horizontal or vertical spray allowing for a more even finish.

More prep work
At the end of last session’s priming I uncovered some pretty inconsistent filler work on the engine-side cowl. This session I started by going back to this with some pretty aggressive sanding, starting with 80 grit coarse paper and making my way through three grades of paper to 600 grit wet and dry fine finish paper. This extra work made a huge difference and corrected my previous mistakes. Like they say this is 99% preparation, 1% perspiration.

A couple of coats of the Rust-oleum primer went on quickly and evenly and I was left with a nice surface for color. While this was drying I turned my attention to the other cowl as the first candidate for paint color.

Problems
The battery-side cowl preparation had been a much easier task, with much less initial rust, pitting and denting than the opposite side so I had assumed that painting color would go smoothly. After thoroughly shaking the can on Dupli-color I set to work. This immediately led to problems:

My first mistake was removing the fine spray gate from the tip of the spray can in error thinking it was a temporary stopper that needed to be removed before use – wrong. Without it the paint began to sputter all over the cowl dripping everywhere. I immediately realized my mistake, put the plastic gate back on the nozzle and proceeded – much better.

After waiting fifteen minutes for the first coat of color to dry I realized I’d need to correct the drips I’d caused before proceeding with more color. This led to the discovery of a second problem:

In a couple of areas, some gentle wet-and-dry sanding over the drips began to lift not just the color off the cowl but also the gray primer. It became clear that the primer had not adhered properly to these areas even though it had had several days to dry. Clearly I had not degreased these areas of the cowl sufficiently. Given that this cowl had required a lot less prep work than the other side this made sense. I had obviously not been methodical about cleaning thoroughly before priming.

Some gentle sanding after one coat of color immediately lifted off some primer back to the original paint.

The worst part of this mistake was that where the paint had come up it left clearly-visible uneven depth areas in what had previously been a nice even primed coat. I spent the rest of the evening working back with a combination of wet-and-dry sanding and additional coats of primer to even these areas out. My first attempt at painting color on this cowl therefore had to be abandoned.

Laying back on primer to correct the issue.

Instead, I turned my attention back to the engine-side cowl. At this point the primer had had over an hour to dry which according to the Dupli-color can was more than enough time. I washed the primed surface down one last time, dried it and tack clothed it in preparation and set about painting.

This time things went much more smoothly. With the spray nozzle correctly set I was able to apply even coats of the color. Between each light coat I waited then minutes. In total it took four coats to get a deep even color.

Engine side cowl, L-R: 1,2,3,4 coats of color.

Even color?
Well no. After waiting an hour after the last coat of color I reinspected the cowl to see clear areas where the paint had not covered evenly. Depending on whether there had been filler, bare metal or the original paint under the primer,even though the primer had covered evenly the color was picking up on all of this showing up blotches that caught in the light. Was this because I had only waited an hour after the final coat of primer before painting?

I gave the color coat a gentle sand with wet 1000 grit super-fine paper in the hope that this would even out the color. It didn’t but wetting the cowl certainly helped even the appearance of the color. With this in mind, figuring I would take the experiment of painting this cowl to its logical conclusion I decided to move forward into the clear top coat. Figuring the worst case scenario being that if nothing else I had effectively covered the rust and considerably cleaned up the cowl for some future coat of paint.

Top coat
At AutoZone, alongside the Dupli-color bright red spray I had also bought a can of their matching clear acrylic top-coat. This sprays on easy enough and is touch-dry after ten minutes. I gave the cowl three coats. As the photo below shows the camera flash revealed two problems: one, even before the clear coat, it looks like the cowl needed one more coat of color. Two the color that is there is showing up every single imperfection of my filling, priming and finger prints.

The conclusion? Cleaning every step of the way with some form of soapy water or degreaser is an absolute must. Even the simplest finger prints will show. I had grown impatient and prior to painting I had sprayed the cowl down with water, but had not used the Comet cleanser. Second, light is your friend. I’m trying to do this in my basement with less than ideal lighting conditions. If you can periodically take your paint job out into the sunlight for inspection before proceeding.

The camera flash clearly shows after top-coat that the paint is still not even and contains clear finger print marks.

Finishing up
Somewhat frustrated, after leaving the top-coat to dry for an hour I resigned myself to the fact that I had reached my original goal of addressing the rust, but not the secondary goal of a pro-paint finish. Instead I reassembled the turn-signal housing on the painted cowl and re-applied the original rubber trim. In doing so I gouged a small scratch into my paint job down to the primer by resting the cowl paint down on a dusty surface. Another lesson learned. Re-assemble against soft, dust-free cloths or towels.

After some time away from the job I still feel that a solid paint job is still possible. At least now I have a much better substrate from which to move forward.

Work accomplished:

• Painted and top-coated the engine-side cowl. The color is not even, but it’s a damn sight better than the rust I had before and while it’s not the finish I had hoped for it will provide a nice base for a future paint job.
• Corrected my degreasing misses on the battery-side cowl. Fine sanded the cowl down to a much  smoother finish that the engine-side.

Materials used:

• Various sandpapers all the way to 1000 grit super-fine wet-and-dry paper
• Rust-oleum primer
• Dupli-color Truck & SUV Bright Red spray paint
• Dupli-color clear acrylic top-coat.
• Lots of water, lots of drying, lots of patience

Lessons learned:

• To get a completely professional job you need to get the primer coat glassy smooth and imperfection free with very fine wet-and-dry sanding and careful filling and painting beforehand. The color shows up every imperfection in its undercoat and no amount of additional color is going to hide this.
• The plastic tab attached to the spray nozzle is supposed to be there. Don’t remove it.
• Clean, clean, clean. The slightest grease (even from fingerprints) will stop primer and paint adhering.
• You need even light and lots of it. Ideally daylight.
• Handle carefully after painting. Use soft towels to cushion the new paint job.

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Remember, it’s not my intent to get a thorough primer finish at this point ready for a topcoat. It’s more to cover and protect the work to date until such time as I’m ready to paint the entire scoot. Dent filling and rust removal is something I need to do anyway so I consider this groundwork. That said I did use this opportunity as a test run to aim for an even primer coat.

I learned some important lessons very quickly:

First. Automotive filler requires two parts to harden. The paste itself and a small “dab” of hardener thoroughly mixed in. This time I was a little over generous with the hardener and the filler only remained workable for less than three minutes. It became a rush to add it to the cowls before it hardened. If in doubt, use less of the smaller tube than you think.

Hanging the cowls after sanding but before cleaning.

Second. Run; don’t walk away from Bright Beauty Sandable Primer. It was handed to me as the default primer at Danken Auto Parts and it is absolutely useless. The majority of the primer dripped down the can rather than spray from the nozzle. The primer that did spray sprayed erratically and inconsistently. Because of all the wasted primer, one can didn’t even cover a cowl. Before I proceed I’m going to see what else is out there in a primer rattle can. Roughly speaking I put on three coats, with a 15 minute wait between coats. This is better documented elsewhere, but the trick is to keep a consistent distant from your target and begin and end spraying away from the panel.

After three "coats" of Bright Beauty Primer, the battery-side cowl still needs more.

Third. Just because you’ve finished priming doesn’t mean you’ve finished prepping for a color topcoat. The consistent gray of the primer allowed me to see areas that still needed either a touch more filler, or more careful sanding down to a smoother surface. Fortunately the primer is of course still sand-able. Clearly this is the stage to get everything right before a color topcoat. I can see this taking at least two, probably three stages of priming and sanding to get to that flawless substrate needed for a spotless paint job.

The procedure? After filling and dry and wet-sanding down to a smooth finish, the final stage before priming is a thorough cleaning. Again using JPM’s guide I thoroughly washed the cowls down with soapy water and used Comet powder cleaner with the green side of a dish sponge to do a final abrasive pass over the panels.

Next, a rinse with water, and thorough drying with paper towels before a tack cloth wipe over to get the last of any dust and other particles off. I was much more vigilant with the outside of the cowls than those parts that face into the engine and battery. I rigged up two coat hangers from the basement ceiling to hang the cowls on to prime, and found it easier to hang them before towel drying and tacking to keep them as dust free as possible. I used the basement hatch to provide indirect ventilation.

After primer. Before primer.

Next? Well clearly I need to try a different primer. A brand name I’ve heard of for a start. With that in hand, I hope to finish an even coat of primer on both cowls. Identify and correct any missed sanding or filling and then spot prime again, repeating as necessary until I’ve gotten a satisfactory primed finish. The cowls will then be reassembled and put back on the bike.

Work accomplished:

• Finished filler on both cowls.
• Cleaned both cowls thoroughly.
• Mostly primed the battery-side cowl.
• Started primer on the engine-side cowl.

Materials used:

• Filler
• Filler spreader
• Soap, water and Comet powder cleaner
• Paper towels
• Tack cloth
• Bright Beauty Sandable primer (caveat emptor)

Lessons learned:

• With the filler, keep the ratio of paste to hardener correct.
• Spend more time shaking spray primer than spraying it.
• The first primer coat doesn’t mean you’re done with corrective work.

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