Ducati Monster Forum

After about a month of running around to the chromer and getting stuck in traffic on the Staten Island expressway on the way to Heman's place, Solar Rain is finally here.

before
(http://kuixihe.com/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=571&g2_serialNumber=2)

after
(http://kuixihe.com/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=568&g2_serialNumber=1)

I haven't seen it in person yet, apparently it has almost a chameleon effect.

I'll say it looks better than my yellow spring ;D

Um.... wow... that's pretty darn cool.  It can be done around NYC?  Where at?!

I got the spring chromed at a place in Jersey called "artistic metal finishing" and then had Heman shoot the solar rain PC and bake it. You can ship to him.

you should ask if its standard in the industry for them to not polish the inside of hte spring, casue it would of came out much nicer if they did.

Amlethae lives in brooklyn i think, no need to get gang raped by the toll nazis.  lol

Yup exactly... though they'll always find a way ;-)

YUM.

very nice, but i'm partial to Chocolate Rain

(http://tracksuitceo.files.wordpress.com/2007/08/chocolate-rain.jpg)

not to sound dumb,but you can PC a spring?

wouldn't it crack when a spring compresses?

not at all. most types of powders can be sprayed onto something say a thin sheet of metal, folded in half and smashed with a hammer and it wouldnt crack. it just has to be thick enough.

the only issue i may see happening is the fact that its real chrome. the chrome is very slippery and theres no edge for the powder to stick onto very well so its all chemical adhesion right now. I would of perfered to have bead blasted it to give it a profile then spray powdercoat chrome, then go with the translucent solar rain. but the chrome makes it look so much better!

Heman, u pc?

yea. which reminds me i need to ship that spring out right now before airborne aims a canon at me.

man, I was contemplating doing some black chrome PC... that does look very good.  I ended up going with an ultra gloss black though.

Still, there will be another winter, and there are more parts to be coated.  This is certainly giving me ideas for the next batch...

so wait. thats a semi-transparent PC over chrome?

I thought (I guess incorrectly) that chrome would flake off most springs since it's nowhere near as flexible.

Nice,  I don't know how it works on this site.. if you can say prices and stuff, if not, message me.. goes by size of item, weight, dexterity?

The chroming cost me $80 bucks at a local place and yes it depends on the size of the part. I could have gotten it done for $60 but I would have had to wait longer. As for the PC, Heman has reasonable prices, PM him.

If the chrome flakes off I will post a follow up. This is sort of an experiment and I wanted to do something a little different so we'll see what happens.

BTW: the guy who owns this local chroming place looks like he is raking it in. This place was a backwoods warehouse so full of chromed parts you cant even walk. I asked for a price on doing a set of motorcycle wheels...650 bucks and the place was overflowing with them. I'm in the wrong business.

i need to get into chroming then. especially in NYC.


And yea its a transparent color over real chrome.

I figured enough people chrome their springs for it to not be a problem. though come to think about it, if the spring is too light for you, its going to bottom out and that might be enough for hte chrome to flake...

I kind of doubt there is any chemical adhesion going on.

I doubt there is any adhesion.

Look it up engineer. ;D

Truth is that powder is just laying on top of the chrome.

All that said it looks really good. [thumbsup]

maybe chemical is not the word. i dont know, why does water stick to ur hand? its sticking alright. lol :D


I dont post prices or anything up here becasue quite frankly, id have to be a sponsor (dont mind it) but i dont think anyone would be willing to ship stuff to me simply because theres most likely someone near u withint driving distance and it negates u shipping stuff to me. but i Pmed u...uhh im PMing u. lol

Well I just got it in the mail and I'm going to be mounting it up this weekend if I am not working overtime. I guess Ill get some pics of it out in the sun installed on the bike with all my new parts.

My guess would be that even if the chrome were to crack from the spring flexing, the pc would hold it together and you won't even notice it.











That's physics, holmes.  It's called surface tension.

there maybe its that. ;D

Van der Waals

When you can tell me that the powder over chrome process passes the test this tool performs http://www.paint-test-equipment.co.uk/index.php?id=6 (http://www.paint-test-equipment.co.uk/index.php?id=6)

I'll agree that it's 'stuck'. ;)

Want to wager? [evil]

 :o it would strip the coat clean off the chrome!

i would do it on my other parts though.  :)

...and I have no doubt they'd do fine. ;)

Honestly, I don't think the PC needs to adhere to the spring (although it assuredly does)

It just needs to adhere to itself since it complete surrounds the spring.

In other news, this would look really good on a frame... Hmmmm. 

Ruh roe.  You just gave DM yet another different material with which to bling his shine machine.   [laugh]

Interesting - carefully cleaned up frame, taking care not to mess with the welds. Then glass-bead blasted and coated with the "candy" black PC would look pretty cool

Nice idea, as I've heard the chroming process doesn't work so well on frames...


I'm getting tired of taking my bike apart... Maybe it's time to call Stu  [evil]

Although common practice on a choppa, I read somewhere that besides the flexing issue (which may not be true judging by chromed springs) The plating somehow focuses torsional stress to the frame tube intersections. Of course this could all be BS. Either way not a big fan of the look of a chromed frame, or chrome in general, and I grew up in the era of big chrome bumpers.

I wanted to PC my frame. But i dont know how easy the factory paint is to strip. Id want to do high gloss black. or a deep blood red.

I would suggest taking to a pro stripper where chemistry can do the work.

I have yet to meet a pro stripper that knew anything about chemistry. Plenty have told they-re going to college though ???

You kids just haven't been around long enough. I knew one working on her PhD in Chemistry ;D

chemistry of Stripping.

Tits + men = cash + free electron.

an exothermic reaction

hold on i forgot to balance it.

2Tits +1men= 10cash + 10free electron.

You spelled that last word wrong. I think the L should be a R and the R is supposed to be an I

Blast it

Soda blast?
Sandblast?
aluminum oxide?

I only have soda blast....how many lbs do you think i can do it with?

Never did soda...

I use grit.

if the frame paint is anything like the wheel paint (which I suspect it is), you're gonna need a lot of soda to strip down to the metal.  Apparently its quite a job even using a large blast cabinet and aluminum oxide media.  Also I'm not sure what sort of chemical stripper is effective on epoxy based coatings.

I stripped a wheel with soda and with regular air craft grade stuff.Aircraft gade stuff is usless on it.

For soda blasting... judging from the thickness of wheel paint that marchensini uses, id say 50lbs of soda. should do it. in and out for a 5 spoke, maybe 30lbs for 3 spoke. this would be inside out. I cant judge a frame because the surface is round and theres a lot of soda wasted if your blasting at an angle. maybe if you minimize the nozzle. eitherway, the frame is steel, not aluminum. Theres more effective ways to remove the paint thats cheaper and easier.

maybe if u use the aircraft stripper to soften it up, and then go at it with the blaster it would be easier.

theres chem strippers that will let u wipe the paint right off. but thats EXPENSIVE and not good at all for the environment. In NYC you need some type of prefilter before you let the water you use to wash it into the city sewage system. Thats kinda why i perfer soda blasting, and blasting in a cabinet. You can just sift it out. Or for soda, the chunks of paint removed are large enough to be removed with a particulate screen at teh sewage facility. And to my knowledge dry paint is inert.

I just got the spring put back on. The PC chips off from the chrome pretty easily. More will come off when I ride and the spring compresses. I think it just doesnt adhere that well to the chrome, so maybe doing a spring wasnt a good idea but most other parts should be okay.

I'll get pics up eventually.

Yeah, sounds like the main problem with doing a "candy" powder on a spring is the smooth bond interface between the chrome and powder.  You likely wouldn't experience chipping or flaking of any kind if the powder was laid on a properly stripped and prepped surface.  Candys seem best on non-flexing parts, like wheels and frames.

I can't tell exactly what it looks like from the pics, but how sweet would this look on a tank? And maybe figureing a way to match it to a seat cowl, and stock headlight bucket? I always like to group stuff in at least 3s. I think a tank would be awesome even by itself though.

That sucks that it chips off. Going with Powder chrome on a texture surface is the way to go with springs i guess. Maybe this is a sign saying you should get your spring swapped to the right rate!


as gooie b pointed out, with your swingarm and carrier, i bead blasted it to give it a nice profile, and for the sprocket, i actually messed up on the first go, and had to strip it. needless to say, it wasnt easy to remove becasue ti was laid on a proper surface.

Let me know if I can do anything else for you to make up for that.

If you had a stock metal headlight brakcet, and stock cowl. you could do it. I have a DP cowl. so technically speaking. if i polish it, clean it and coat it. i have the same thing. [evil] I have a metal tank too, so i could pwoder chrome it, then powder solar rain it. but its got a nice dent in it that i keep saying ill fix but probably wont.

We need to get some test pieces of whatever sprayed with solar rain over chrome PC or paint. I want to do a frame or tank also for a separate build and chroming is just too costly. I have a feeling chrome pc will work almost as well, however, it may not fix the chipping off problem.

I'm going to ride with it and see if it all chips off. If it starts looking like ass I'll just blast the rest off at work and I'll still have the chrome.

Every tech in the shop asked me wtf color it was when i brought it in. It does indeed look cool in person/in the sun.

I'd imagine a tank or frame done in this color would look something like this:
(http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash1/hs341.ash1/29205_525369328968_47701118_30958958_5555889_n.jpg)

In real life though, not in photoshop.

Oh God that is beautiful.

Powder will work for a spring just fine. Factory Ohlins is powdercoated. Powder should not chip off, but if it cant get a bite onto the spring at all, maybe any bend in the surface is causing it to lose surface tension, and then when it returns you get a stretched powder that has no way to stick. So if its a frame or any other part, after giving it a nice profile through blasting, powder coat will stick very well.

I asked around about film thickeness, everyone says you cant lay a thick coat on, otherwise it looses its translucent properties, which makes sense.

Go figure.

Why so grumpy? You must of gotten your tire dirty today. :P

Not grumpy at all.  ;)

Oooo i want that bike..