This article was printed in the Spring 2007 issue of The Antique Motorcycle, if you enjoy the article and would like to learn more about old bikes and meet other people that like them check out www.antiquemotorcycle.org/ This articlewill focus on separate examples of how to either refurbish the existing patina of a bike, create your own patina, and mix and match both to come up with a consistant finished product.
BIKE NUMBER 1
When I was 16 my father bought a 941 knucklehead from the original owner’s nephew. This bike was finished in the deluxe sport solo package, and it was absolutely amazing. The bike only had 7,000 original miles on it. The original owner bought it brand new in 1941 and was soon shipped off for duty in World War II. This young man met his untimely demise in the Baton Death March. His family kept the bike at their summer ranch and would ride it around a couple of times each summer. As with most old bikes, a couple of things had been changed.
Sometime over the course of he last 66 years, the '41 had been repainted black over the original flight red paint. There were a lot of places where the black paint had chipped and you could see the original red paint underneath. Seeing all of his nice original paint really excited my father and me, and we always wondered what the paint looked like underneath the cheap orange-peeled black paint. Other than the '70s black paint job, the bike had perfect patina. All of the cadmium plating, the Parkerizing and the nickel and chrome plating were in perfect condition. In a case like this, what would you do? Restore it to its original showroom condition, leave it the way it is, or make the sheet metal match the rest of the bike?
Since there was so much original paint poking through the black paint, I decided to experiment. I took some acetone to the black paint. The acetone softened up the paint and even bubbled it up in some spots. Where the soft paint had bubbled up, I wiped it away quickly. This was vital so the excess acetone would not settle on the original paint. I had to be very careful throughout the entire process not to leave extra acetone on the original enamel paint, so it wouldn’t eat through it.
In the spots where the paint was harder to remove, I had to use a different approach. The technique I used was to soften up the hard paint with acetone and then sand it down with 1000 grit sand paper. After about 30 hours of hard work, I had removed the black paint from the tanks revealing beautiful original flight red paint underneath. In the case of this particular bike the original owner’s relatives took a shortcut; rather than sanding off the paint to bare metal, they scuffed the original paint with light sandpaper and used it as a primer. This was good because 90 percent of the original paint was intact beneath the black paint. Yet, I had to go back and wet sand the original paint to smooth out any scratches that had occurred during that process. Finally, I hand rubbed it with Imperial Hand glaze which is available at many auto parts stores. This product really brought out the beautiful air dry enamel shine of the original paint.
BIKE NUMBER 2
In the group of bikes we worked on in 2006, we restored two Hollywood Green 1938 Knuckleheads. One of these ‘38s came to us as a motor, transmission, and frame and best of all—original paint gas tanks! Our customer wanted the bike to look like it had just been pulled out of a barn. He gave us the goal of creating a complete “patina-ed” bike around the unrestored gas tanks. This project was a challenge that was totally different from any bike we had ever worked on. So we did what any one would do that is in the dark, ask for help. My father talked to Lonnie Isam, and the late Mike Smith for advice. They gave us a lot of valuable information, which became our starting point.
We were lucky enough to find a lot of original paint and original plated parts. This didn’t necessarily mean the parts we found looked like they had come from the same bike. As an example, the frame retained 90 percent of its older paint and was a perfect match to the gas tanks; yet the front end had been repainted as some point. Instead of holding out and trying to look for an original paint 1938 only front end we had to match it to the frame and the rest of the bike parts. Considering the end result, we had to take the “finish” part a step further by insuring that they all looked like they had been in the same environment and weathered by the same elements over the same amount of time.
After we found the fenders for the ’38 we sent them off to Larry Medwig of Concord, Ohio to be straightened. They came back straight as an arrow and primed in yellow epoxy primer ready for paint. We delivered the fenders to Gilby’s Street Department in River Falls Wisconsin. He proceeded to strip off the primer and re-coat it with black primer. The reason for this was because we were planning to rub through the paint, and, we wanted it to match the original paint on the gas tanks. He proceeded to paint the base color of Hollywood Green and hand striped the sides of the fenders. After the pain had hardened he distressed the fenders until they matched the original paint gas tanks. This entailed rubbing through the top coat of pain, chipping the paint from various rivet heads and scratching through different areas. When we got the fenders back from Gilby we were amazed, but it was just a starting point.
We needed to create more character. To simulate road grime we took a piece of terry cloth towel dipped in black undercoating and lightly smeared it on certain parts of the fenders. We also sprayed it with saltwater and vinegar to get it to rust in some areas where the paint rubbed through.
For the black paint on the rest of the bike we used Scotch Bright pads to dull the finish to a matte black. After it was dulled, we used the Imperial Hand Glaze to give it the correct amount of shine to match the other pieces. We also used the Scotch Bright pads and various grits of sandpaper to either rub through or just rough up the paint in places. A hand held propane torch is handy for blistering and bubbling the paint as well. For the rims and hubs, we mixed old grease with black enamel to give it the look of old paint with rust underneath. After we mounted the exhaust we spread old motor oil on all of the individual pieces and heated them up with an acetylene torch. Before they had a chance to cool down, we sprayed all of the parts with vinegar.
Cadmium Plating: On the cad plating we used a combination of different techniques to knock down the finish including Scotch Bright pads, sandpaper, glass beading and heat. Followed by a liberal dose of vinegar to make the pieces rust.
Nickel Plating: We were lucky in this area, because the project came with most of the original nickel plated pieces. The main things missing were the oil lines. It would take a lifetime or a lot of luck to find a complete set of original oil lines. We came to the realization that we would have to make them, so we dug through our parts inventory and found a set of pre-1943 oil line nuts with original nickel plating and sent them off to Dennis Corso in Kent, Ohio. Dennis makes a lot of reproduction parts including oil lines and exhaust components. He bent up some copper tubing into the correct shape and shipped them back. After we received the lines, we fit them to the bike and sent them to Doug Brown from Vevay, Indiana, to be nickel plated. Doug knew about our project and understood the end result we were looking for, so he took the liberty of aging the oil lines.
After he plated them, he burred through some of the nickel plating to bring out the copper underneath. Then he rubbed the lines with old grease and heated them up with the torch. This blackened the copper and gave it an antique look.
Parkerizing: Once again, we used Scotch Bright pads, heat, bead blasting and vinegar to simulate age and wear. We found a product at a stained glass shop, appropriately named patina. It comes in two different colors – green and black. Sprayed on the distressed parkerizing with a combination of heat brought out the correct finish.
Leather: We were unable to locate an original pre-1940 non-vented seat, so we bought a European-built repro seat. It was a beautiful reproduction but looked out of place on our beat up project. We removed the die with lacquer thinner and roughed up the nose and top of the seat with a hard 36-grit sanding disc. Then we dyed it with a modern black shoe dye, but it still didn’t look right. The leather had the right texture to it, but it still was too soft. So we took our trust hand-held torch and began to heat the leather. The heat dried out the leather and dulled the dye, which died the trick. Underneath the seat was a fresh layer of shiny lack paint. We roughed it up and sanded through the paint in a couple of spots and sprayed it with vinegar so it would rust. We also used heat on the bottom to blister the paint and to age it.
These examples were in different degrees of condition and required a different degree of aging for a correct look. It is just a matter of practice and experimenting to get the proper effect of distressing. The eyes wil be attracted to the larger focal point and if you’ve maintained some level of consistency, the viewer’s mind will assume that all is correct. I also helps to have a third party, who hasn’t been very involved with the project, and will take a look at it. Case in point, when we were doing the final assembly of the 1938 EL my mother pointed out a couple of shiny spots that stood out to her eye. We dulled them down a bit.
We hope you have received some helpful information from this article. As if often the case, there is more than one-way to do something. Try to keep in mind that you can’t really mess it up, since that is the effect that you are going for.
Carl's Cycle Supply
38518 142nd Street
Aberdeen SD 57401
605-225-5702
www.carlscyclesupply.com
