I love the winter weather; all frosty and snowy - but this year its been most inconvenient. Just as I get the scooter on the road, so the roads become way to dicey for me to drive on. And so I have to make do with finding things to tinker around on in the garage.I really like the colour of my scooter, I like its clean and simple look and I dont want of lots of chrome fittings on it, but i do feel it needs something to add some detail. The obvious step is add some stick-on graphics (no, Im not going to spray graphics on). There are heaps of stickers for vespas on ebay, but I couldnt find anything that I liked. I dont want to overly associate myself or my scooter with the Mod scene by putting checker stripes on (i really dont like the look of middle aged men being mods - there is something really not right about that oxymoron).
Eventually I found a very helpful chap (Dean, AKA dsn101) on ebay who said he could print any decal/sticker i wanted, and so for £10 he printed me 3 off 1000mmx70mm Italian Tricolure strips.
Now you would think that applying stickers to your bike would be childs play wouldn't you? I was surprised to see how many youtube videos there are of professionals showing you how to apply stickers, but was grateful to learn the water/soap spray method - it helped a lot.And so some detailing has been added to the scooter - and i rather like it. The only thing I might do different in another life would be to have an extra pair of hands around to help stretch the leg-shield stripe around the compound curve - mine has run off line a little - i can see now why people typically use shorter and narrower stripes on this area.
I had a comment from someone the other day about the scooter - they liked it very much and connected the front shock absorber Guinness-can cover with what they saw as the Irish flag stripes and made the immediate assumption that I was Irish! Hmm i hadnt seen it like that - I might have to change that can for a peronni can (mind you, im not Italian either!)
in other news - Ive bought myself a 10mm link chain and an alarmed padlock - so I hope i can minimise the opportunity for any pesky thieves
hmm i must get those wheels painted too
2 comments:
It's looking really smart. Looking at it now I think you might be able to recover a fair amount of your investment if you were to sell it.
I think the decals are great, a good choice. I'm a bit surprised about the damper cover, why not Red Bull?
I spoke to Patrick (Scooter Surgery) and he told me that the Vespa engine was originally a bomber aircraft engine starter motor. Have you heard that?
Ah the Guinness can was a solution to tidying up the tatty plastic shock absorber cover way before Red Bull came along - I might well change it one day, but i rather like the black and gold, AND it was a Guinness can that I used in a similar circumstance many years ago on the Lomax - got to keep traditions up! ;-)
I knew Piaggio made aluminium aircraft before they did scooters, but no I didnt know about starter motors - I hope they had the same kick start lever sticking out the side of the bomber :-)
Post a Comment