Yeah, that's a brilliant look. Pun unintended. Yeah, it'd be shiny all right. But GENIUS too. Especially on a frame that's been bronze braze-welded, where you get the contrasting colours in the joints, often with discolouration to the steel from gas welding etc.
One thing I liked the sounds of, was from that famous loop-frame/Tonti-frame Guzzi restoration specialist, wherein they offered a guarantee of 30+yrs on their frame re-painting. I guess what they do is they powder-coat the thing really well, and THEN do an over-coat in really solid hard-wearing spray-paint, with a top-coat over that!
Dunno what that would look like in clear-coat. Well, I guess I'd sure like to find out! One thing which comes to mind, is that with a clear-coat job, any scratches causing rust spots which would normally hide under the paint, will now be readily visible. Which makes me think you've either gotta do it really solid and thick in the first place, scratch-resistant etc. OR you've gotta do it in such a way as to be easily spot-repaired in future.
Another big question would be about the new imitation-chrome paints. Could one easily or at least more affordably, replicate the Rickman style NICKEL finish?
One would suppose that the typical vibratory-ceramic-bead polished powder-coat jobs are out of the question, as you'd need a shaker bin that's big enough for the frame to rattle around in there without hitting the walls all of the time. Unless of course, you could polish the powder or ceramic finishes by HAND, or rather with successive grades of sand-paper & other such media, etc etc. Maybe that's feasible?
Another possibility - I guess it depends on the types of steels being used. I took the black powder-coat off this here NOS XL500 aka CB1100R gas-cap, sanding it down in successive stages but mostly using very fine grit stuff. Which was why it was such a #$%* to remove, I suppose, was that the roughest grade I used was probably 400-grit ha-ha. ANYWAY yeah, the steel underneath would appear to be some type of stainless or high chromium steel - It's the same as the CB750F/CB900F DOHC type gas caps, presumably similar to certain of the SOHC caps as well? But yeah, I dunno if it's a proper stainless steel, as the inner layer seems to rust up if you sand off the yellowish micro-coating then cap off a wet gas tank
I then polished it up with this here "MOTHER'S" mag wheel & Aluminum polish. I'm sure you're familiar with the stuff? Well it did a really nice job, so much so that I went back after it with the higher grades of polish, 'cause you could see the swirl marks from the 800-grit/1000-grit or whatever it was, so I went after it with the 1500, 2000, & 2500 - just briefly mind you, and then a final rub with the Mother's and the thing's BEAUTIFUL very bright and lightly toned just like chrome, plus it's holding it's shine after several months too. Being that it's a low corrosion material in the first place, it seems like there's little to no requirement for any kind of top coat. It's a great contrast for the "toaster-tank" style, polished CB1100R Aluminum gas tank. The only problem being that now the Aluminum looks even more dull beside it....
So I do realize that the frame ISN'T made from these same grades of steel as the gas cap etc, but perhaps it too could be polished to a higher sheen, rendering the appearance of a Rickman style Nickel coat. Or close to it.
Just sayin' - I mean, yeah you could have the "brushed look" if you just clear-coat it after cleaning off the paint with a wire-wheel. Or a bead-blasted style pebble-grain finish, if you sand-blasted the thing.
OR, you could take it to the "next level #$%*" level of #$%*.
It's a heck of a lot of work, don't get me wrong. Steel being a much harder material than say, even Aluminum. But so long as it isn't scratched up too harshly in the paint and/or rust removal process - if say, you took the paint off with a chemical stripper or at least a very fine grade of blasting media, a softer media such as those normally used for soft alloys etc; if the steel isn't all scratched up from paint stripping then hopefully there won't be too much more sanding & polishing left to do with the high grit papers and wax or paste polishing media. It's still a huge amount of work don't get me wrong, but possibly less than otherwise IF due care and attention is paid to not making it any worse.
This is why my CB1100R/XL500 gas cap turned out so well. It might have been due to the fact the damn thing was NOS in the first place, but if you'd seen it midway through the stripping/polishing process you'd agree with me that it might as well have been any of the clapped out 2nd-hand versions from XL185, XL250 XL350 etc - Some very interesting alternative style caps on some of those models, such as an on/off switch for the vent hole etc etc. I kinda like the idea of using one of those ones with the switch/cover taken off. Though really, IMHO the most beautiful of all would be to fit the top cover layer from the gas cap from the '59 CB92 Benly Super-Sport, over the regular base layer which fits the CB1100R tank. Which would be any & all of those XL series caps, 'cause you'd need to subsidize the price somehow when you're talking about chopping up '59 CB92 parts.
(((THESE days I mean. Back in the late '80s & early '90s, bikes of that character/flavour, era, & displacement? Free for the hauling! It's disgusting to think of the cool lil' bikes I passed over back then. Like, a first year SS50 for instance. "Nah. But thanks anyway...." #$%*ing stupid kid.)))
But yeah, THAT would be the gas cap that I REALLY wanted on this new bodywork I'm doing up. I mean, it's almost the same thing. Both the CB92 and CB1100R caps have this knobby radial symmetry thing going on. But then again it's miles away from being similar - The CB92 cap was high art-deco carving from the industrial era, whereas the CB1100R version was pseudo-industrial styling from the designer jeans era. Ha-ha. I still see some parallels of course - Because aside from the MT125/MT250 Elsinore enduro/dirt-bike racers, the CB92 and then the CB1100R were the only two showroom-floor models over that entire span of time (SFAIK) which were fitted with an alloy tank as bone stock regular equipment. I mean, yeah there was the CR750 but that was a kit conversion. It's more about the design or style of 'em though, I feel there are some similarities. Though you'd only notice 'em once you'd stripped down the CB1100R tank to it's bare metal. If I ever lay hands on the leading-link forks which Tony Foale made for CB900F & CBX etc, my "CB900K0 Bol Bomber" homage to the CB450K0 Black Bomber, would simply be termed a "CB902" - THEN I wouldn't have to piss around with the "toaster-tank" polished sides, but rather some type of up-&-over knee-pad slash belly-pillow in black rubber or cast silicone at the very least. I should get one of those "mould your own dildo" kits and make one out of that "Cyber-Skin" material. (YA'LL know what I mean, don't you? ME? I only heard of it 'cause my first wife worked in a "love shop" one summer when we were in college. Oddly enough she was quite the prude....) Now THAT would make for one very comfortable gas tank! Ha-ha. Actually, I've been contemplating doing the same basic shape as the belly-pad thing from CB92, but in a wrap-around SEAT cover, ala VF750F or CBX750F or Katana etc. The style is quite reminiscent of the Corbin "Gunfighter & Lady" (not to be confused with the Lee Marvin Sissy Spacek Western from MGM pictures by the same name) - [just kidding, I'm making that up] *COUGH* - as I was saying, the where & how that you "PAINT YOUR WAGON" is a man's own business.... Truly though, an Interceptor style "wrap-around-the-tank seat-cover" but paired with the SOHC CB750K0 Sand-Cast "Duck-Tail" style seat cover the rest of the way to the rear fender, perhaps with some type of contrasting coloured strip of vinyl, perhaps colour-matched to the body-work/paint-work/tin-work etc, separating the two sections such that knee-pad/belly-pad portion seems like an entirely separate critter etc... It's an idea, anyhow.
Your plain steel, clear-coated style frame is an intriguing design feature. Tempting to "borrow" it myself. But I guess that all boils down to some very different paint-work choices. I guess I could see myself doing it for some type of Rickman Replica boutique cafe racer look, with lots of candy-paint metal-flake covered fiber-glass body-work all over it, a big boxy tail cowl RCB style and a baroque multi-curved endurance-racer style fairing up front - I guess what I'm visualizing here, rather than a mini-Rickman CR, CR500 in blech orange sports-car paint (well, maybe REPSOL orange perhaps? For some reason, I'd like to see that colour on a Comstar wheel - ideally a Boomerang or better yet the six-spoke style Comstar wheels from an NSR250 or NS400R, VF1000R, NS500/NSR500 etc etc) *COUGH* - What I'm VISUALIZING here, is an RCB with an acid-trip re-paint ha-ha. Perhaps, if anything smaller than a DOHC CB750F based RCB replica version of which, then some scaled-down RCB style bodywork on a smaller SOHC-4 but again with the Comstar rims like a mini-RCB if you will. I'm just not letting go of that style of body-work! And where normally I'd be all about the wire-spoke rims, I just can't let go of the Comstar rims for this visual - partly 'cause I've found some awesome Akront "NERVI" 50% lighter rims for the perfect set of rebuilt Comstar wheels for a smaller SOHC-4, but MAINLY because whenever I see a Rickman CR I think to myself "THIS is supposed to be the penultimate mid-'70s Honda four??? WTF - RCB!!!" Sorta semi-boring on a 750 let alone a 900 - but do it with a smaller SOHC-4, or better still a CB1100F or better still CB1100R replica, done up on a CB250N/CB400N Super-Dream or CB400T Hawk, with Boomerang rims from XBR500 widened with CB900F2/CB1100R rims or equivalent sizes from Akront "NERVI"? Simply ... too awesome for words!
So yeah - Just sayin' - THAT'S why I'm so resistant to suggesting that it'd be like a 550cc Rickman CR - 'cause the FRAME'S about the only thing which checks any boxes for me personally - Or rather I should say, the NICKEL FINISH on that frame! Heck, if you look at practically any of the other basic equipment on a Rickman CR, it's inferior to the '69 CB750K0 in the first place. Just sayin'!
Or rather, IF you prefer something less inflammatory - What I'm picturing now INSTEAD would be the Bill Ivy replica Jawa Type 673 350cc V-4 "homage" which I wanna make from a Honda MVX250F - Picture it either nekkid, or with one of those smooth slow-curving EGG-shaped full fairings like a tipped-up Dust-bin - I guess they probably don't make a replica of the Jawa Type 673 itself but I'm sure a Kawa H1R fairing would suffice in a pinch. OR with a little fixed-bikini style "1/3-fairing" like the VF750F Interceptor or Katana, but smooth & organic just like the semi-bubble semi-monocoque looking thing from the front end of Geoff Duke's '57 Gilera 500 DOHC-4 Grand Prix racer - OR screw it, stick a damn dust-bin on the damn thing if you like - But NOW just picture it NEKKID for a minute so we can get a good look at that smooth clear-coated bare-bum-steel frame, (& all of the little golden hairs all over it's bare bum while you're at it.) Mmmmm. No, I mean the steel with the clear-coat though. But it's still a Honda MVX250F see, so we'd stick with the 16"/18" wheel-set on it, only wider and converted to wire-spokes - it should go without saying - And ideally with an engine-swap from an NS400R if you REALLY wanna day-dream along with me here, everything but the frame itself being "embiggened" to the next level #$%*, but staying in the '80s era of Honda tech. So ... the "faux-leading-shoe" OEM type half-of-a-CBX550F "inboard disc" front brake with it's 2.15x16" front rim would be replaced by a PC800 Pacific Coast "hub" laced to this beautiful lil' Akront 2.50x16" which I just picked up - Bah, that one's only 36-spoke as it turns out, and we're talking about a 40-spoke "semi-hypothetical" hub (gonna build it now that my GL1500 version seems to be hitting some snags) with custom one-off rotor shrouds so that it only LOOKS slightly more [& only slightly] like a real 4LS drum (or at least more like the CBX550F/MVX250F/VF400R etc "inboard disc" rather than the bouncy rubber ball wrapped in TUPPERWARE which is the shroud-work over the PC800 Pacifica front brake), but I figure 276mm dual-disc would be adequate for this lil' monster. And you might want rubber boots and tin shrouds on the forks but you're not gonna swap over the whole front end off a '72 GT750J just to get that dinky lil' 4LS drum - what you want is a proper '80s Honda TRAC anti-dive fork! Just like the bike was equipped with, only BETTER. Thicker tubes and TRAC on BOTH sides. So maybe a 39mm CB1100F/CB900F2 TRAC fork on this one, being that it's only a 250cc/400cc here, and we'll wanna bump those DOHC-4 bikes up to 41mm-43mm TRAC forks anyhow, (((this is how my proposed TRAC fork hand-me-down program would work, you see))) - And then lace up this here 3.50x18" Super-Akront ultra featherweight rim on the back, but the MVX had a rear drum of it's own (just as did the VF750S Sabre & several other very sporty machines of the mid-'80s) So one COULD swap to a really compact rear disc like the 210mm vented disc & under-slung caliper from VF1000R, but that's just gonna add a whole bunch of WEIGHT more than anything else! So ME I'd rather lace it to something like a KZ400 40-spoke drum but all lightened up with massive ventilation holes and with the KZ454LTD cush/carrier carved into a Laverda SF750 style extraction-fan hub and that belt-pulley carrier thinned down but still with just that outer ring of steel sprocket stuck to it's exterior periphery - Just like super-duper light-weight but over-kill brakes & suspension on the lil' beast. Maybe some other bits from the NS400R as well? Seems cruel to murder the NS400R like that but maybe we'd figure out a way to stuff a VF1000R engine into it ha-ha. Well screw it, 'cause this is all about my tubular-steel framed Jawa Type 673 350cc V-4 "pseudo-replica" build here. And my POINT being, that all you'd really need on the thing is a basic re-paint and a wire-spoke wheel swap and there you are - for starters.
Okay, so if you like - one could follow much the same model, suspension & brakes -wise, with any other Honda middle-weight from mid-'70s through mid-'80s extraction. ME I just wanna talk MVX250F 'cause it's the one light/middle-weight (250cc/400cc potentially???) Honda from this era which gives me the biggest chubby of the whole bunch!
And I guess I mention the lovely, or rather wretched & tacky nigh on CHACHI appearance of the bone-stock MVX250F for another reason. In a less moto-lustful mood I might've brought up my old 1970 SL100 for instance, or the other SL & early XL models such as the XL350 IIRC - All of these Honda models who's frames which were painted SILVER from the factory. {BLECH.}
To draw your attention to the fact that a silver PAINTED frame is a far cry from a clear-coated or bare metallic frame! WORLDS apart. 'Cause you start to picture that MVX250F nay MVX400F frame all stripped down to the bare metal, and you begin to get a picture of the proper Comm-Bloc exotica which it sooo obviously sought to ape & mimic all along (yet all the while hiding in plain sight, under it's '80s B-Boy Break-Dance Soccer-Hooligan get-up, Adidas Track-Suit of a paint-job! Ha-ha.)
'Cause it's all in those little finish details - not Finnish details but finish details not talking about the Puch-derived "Tunturi Super-Sport" here, though again what a contrast with the WHITE painted frames - Yuck! Ha-ha/Ja-ja. No really though, just those few subtle details can differentiate what (on the surface, see?) SEEMS like a hideous mid-'80s crotch-rockety experimental-era Superbike wannabe lightweight, from an original '60s era Eastern European Grand Prix machine of legend and lore. To flip through a motorcycle encyclopedia you'd think there couldn't be any two more different motorcycles in all of too-smoke-dom but strip 'em down to the undercoat and they're practically identical. Even, nay especially with those heat shield areas in the seat cowl slash side-cover area. I mean, on the V-3 version from Honda the bike doesn't even HAVE a pipe on both sides. Whereas on the Jawa Type 673 they're both made from polished Aluminum or stainless steel perhaps - a proper heat-shield either way. Honda made 'em out of plastic, but WHY? Unless they were fully aware of what a bunch of copy-cats they were being? Sometimes I wish they'd been a lil' more obvious with their OTHER models, like maybe some BMW Boxer-twin style cooling fins on the heads and barrels of the Gold Wing, or Guzzi V35/V50/V65 style fins on the CX series? Would be nice. CZ Type 860 style cooling fins all over the heads and barrels of the VF-series especially the V65 Magna & V65 Sabre, perhaps? Well anyway in this ONE instance they really went balls out with the copy-cat work, right down to the fake drum front hub on the MVX250F. And as such, you get a sense of what all the surface finish can do both for or AGAINST a motorcycle!
(((SOOOO many Honda models which we haven't yet seen a proper cafe racer done with 'em - STILL no cafe road-racer conversions of the VFR1200X Cross-Tourer, or the CTX1300 for that matter. Such HUGE potential right there. I just don't get it! Okay, so they're not cheap when they're brand new. Ah but give 'em a good 10-15yrs on the market! OH yes. But meanwhile, wtf's the excuse for the MVX250F & VF1100C/VF1100S Eastern-Bloc pseudo-replica builds, why aren't we seeing multiples of these obvious choices? Even at the very least, the Sabre done up as RS850/RWF1000R replica? Just mouldering away collecting either rust-&-dust, or worse still skull stencil spray paint jobs, concho buckles and leather fringe tassled handlebar grips! ARGH.)))
YEAH, GAWDDAMNIT - you definitely SHOULD clear-coat that nekkid stripped frame! I'm in love with the mere thought of it.
-Sigh.
