Precision Motorcycle Painting

The Yamaha 650 is a highly collectable bike from the 70s that was aimed to compete with the Triumph Bonneville and it did a good job in doing so. This particular bike is owned by my good customer in Texas and has a ton of major upgrades that can be seen at xs650.com. We painted the tins with Yamaha Competition Green paint.

There are many bikes out there that need restoring, however many owners sometimes give up because of the availability of the stripes and decals. This particular model is one of those bikes, the 1985 Suzuki GS 550 ES. Very few were made so there was very little demand for the decals and stripes. We did however send all the parts to our source to use as a reference to reproduce all the correct decals and stripes. We then had to use old school white pearl and candy blue to match the decals the way the factory did back in 1985. My customer has quite the collection of vintage Japanese motorcycles. We hope he enjoys these parts. Thanks Pat.

My good customer from Canada was nice enough to send me pictures of his 1967 Norton N15 that we painted 13 years ago. He still wins awards in shows to this day. When my customers make an investment in their motorcycles by letting us paint them it's nice to know they still look good years later.

Buchanan’s Wheel Lacing Process - Motorcycle Classics Learn along with Joe Berk as he and Ken Buchannan of Buchanan’s Spoke and Rim walk through the wheel lacing process for a classic bike.

My good customer in California bought this 1975 Honda CB400F with 2,690 miles on it. He sent it to me and wanted a complete frame off restoration. Every nut and bolt was replated, all black parts were blasted and painted with poly urethane enamel, body parts were painted, all chrome parts were re chromed, the gauges were rebuilt, and it has new fork tubes and tires. My customer wanted a like new bike only with modern finishes so it will last many years. This brings us to the question, "is a fully restored bike done properly worth more or less than an original in perfect condition?" You decide.

Back before 1988 when there wasn't any alcohol in the gas many motorcycles used fiberglass gas tanks without any problems including this 1970 Norton 750 Fastback. After 1988 when the alcohol was added (gasohol) the fiberglass would deteriorate from the inside out. My customer contacted us for advice and we had this tank made out of a high grade aluminum. Of course it was made by hand which meant we had to finish it off before we applied the Fireflake Royal Blue metalflake. My customer was very pleased with the whole job and the fact he will never have to worry about a leaky gas tank.

We have posted several pictures of Vincent gas tanks that we have restored however here's a complete bike in which we refinished every part including the rims that we had chromed. We've done quite a few of these bikes for a collector who was originally from England and now resides in Michigan. This is a 1953 Vincent Black Shadow.

1974 Harley Davidson FLH Electra Glide. This bike belongs to my good customer from South Bend and it was totally restored, but not by us. We did however provide some of the paint work to make this restoration " top tier".

This bike is owned by a local resident whose parents bought this for him when he was very young back in 1972. The dealer that sold this was mainly a lawn mower shop located at Elwood and Huey St. in South Bend. Rupp sold mini bikes, go karts and snow mobiles. We really enjoyed preserving a piece of history for my customer along with memories he will always cherish.