The bare finish should be OK, my first Pantah was like that from the factory without issues if you kept it salt free.
I guess you took the engine and stripped it whole did you Nick - how did you get such a great finish? I need to do the same and really don't want to take it apart for bead blasting so was wondering how you'd achieved such a great finish...?
Are they the sort of three inch brass brushes in a drill, the little iddy biddy ones in a dremel or just a spark plug type manual brass brush? I'm into time and labour saving if possible but not afraid of elbow grease. Main thing is not to wreck my cases in the process.....got any pics of the offending tools?
All three! Wash the engine off before to remove any excess dirt & grime, then use a big brass brush to get the worst off, followed by alternate rinsing with brake cleaner? (Get a few cans of the cheap stuff from your local marketplace/hardware shop, these cost me like a £1 each!) Car Pride Brake Cleaner 300ml Removes Dirt and Dust from your Brakes New | eBay SET OF 4 WIRE BRUSHES STEEL & BRASS BNIB | eBay Get a Dremel with the little brass brush's in all the nooks & crannies, followed by a final wash with brake cleaner. Case will now be etched & bone dry, ready for a good acid-etch primer & topcoat. DONT think about spraying before you are 100% happy with all the prep! Poor prep will mean your paint will fall off in a few years, like OE Ducati engine paint.
Got my castor wheels tacked onto my makeshift engine cradle! As it only uses the lower engine mount that the Pantah frame doesn't use it means I can build it up and wheel it around! My painter popped around today and quoted me for paint and it wasn't too bad. He's picking up the bodywork in the next couple of weeks for delivery end of Jan.
Ok, it's getting there! The motor is primed and ready for some paint. Once I find the piston circlips it can even go back together! My painter has primed all the bodywork, I just need to settle on a colour. I want it close to the original Pantah blue, but it doesnt need to be spot on. The far left swatch is the closest to my eye? What do you guys think, it's a long time since I've looked at a blue Pantah!
Thanks Pete, it's lighter than I remember. I've had another look at the chips and the Mrs agrees. I've settled on a nice light metallic blue as used on some Peugeot and Citroën models. I'll post the pictures when the bodywork is back. My only worry now is that the OE decals I sourced from Holland are still usable.
By the time you've photographed it and put it on a computer, and I am looking at it on another computer, I doubt my opinion of your swatch is very useful, but all things being equal, it looks more like the one on the left. Can you not get the original spec from Ducati? Or you could send a swatch book to someone like Pete to check against a real Pantah.
I understand what you're saying. The colours are spot on for how they look on my notepad, and it's only a rough idea. The colour doesn't need to be an exact match, close enough is good enough
In which case any of them is going to look good, although the one on the right is a bit more run-of-the-mill and silvery - almost 600 Pantah rather than 500.
So, in the field of special one-off builds is there really any need to look to replicate any exact feature of something else? Methinks not. It has the makings of a very special one-off, and two or three Pantone shades won't take away from the "speshilness" of this special. go with what you feel will suit the picture in your mind's eye, and it will be right for you, and few of us will be anything other than envious.
Thanks for the compliment! The first coats went on the bodywork Friday, the decals and first coats of laquer will be on Monday. He said he likes to give it a few days to settle before flatting back and putting more laquer on, or something like that? Hopefully it'll be with me before next weekend
