Topic: Are you Refacing or Defacing your gauges?

[ElCheapo]

Well there is this magical clear adhesive from 3M. Not sure what it is called exactly. It comes in clear and brown I think. Dab will do ya and then a big hose clamp for the night and the slice made with the dremel pretty much disappears.

[jtb]

Thanks,  I've got an extra tach for the F2 and will send you the face if you want.

John

[DiscoEd]

Hello,
I am wondering if someone  might have good images of a speedo and tach for a 75 Cb550 that they could post or email to me.

Thank you,
DiscoEd

[Terry in Australia]

Terry took them to the chromers!
Can't wait to see them on the bike

Terry
What did it cost to get them chromed?
T2

Geez, I don't know how I missed this post? Ah well, Preston Plate here in Melbourne charged me $40.00 for 2 bezels which I thought was a tad expensive, but I bought a set of the chrome bezel covers offa Ebay, and the chrome is pretty poor, and with shipping etc, were way more expensive that getting mine plated. As Derek says, I can always make more money.......... Cheers, Terry.

[ElCheapo]

There are kits for doing anything that will fit in a 5 gallon bucket for under $500 US for the kit. Now this does not sound great, but when you can produce parts that are never seen in chrome for sale they go wild and the price of the kit will quickly earn itself. Ones that will do a set of bars are more like $800. It would take you a short time to chrome an upper and lower tripple you could earn back half your costs out.

Anyway, guys - I have been stupid busy here. If someone here would be willing (and have the software needed) to help out with this please get back to me. I have most of the years drawn out already. I just do not have the time to chase back and forth to the printer. Anubis Cycle has consumed all my time. Really I could not even take the time to nurse a pint if I wanted to.

[jtb]

Hey Cheapo,
Did you ever make any progress on the faces?  I've got the clocks off my 750F2 apart for painting.

Thanks
John

[ElCheapo]

Just started making the white face due south faces and the K1 black faces. If you scan your faces and email them to me I can make sure I have the right art work. The green and blue are the hardest to match. We are working on this part.

[6pkrunner]

El - do you have any idea of a time frame for K2 and K3 dials? I've got a K3 started and there's another K2 coming in the door very soon. I'm in no hurry, just wondering.

[Zane]

Here's mine.  They're more for practicality than for restoration.  If Canada had stayed with Imperial distance measurement (mph) I would have restored the gauges I think, rather than re-designing them the way I did.

A couple of fellow members emailed me about my face images, and I've been playing around a bit with some ideas - more for fun than for any other reason.  So this white one is something I did just as a conceptual thing ....

As for my working faces - here's a bit of info about what I did....

I print on Epson professional Paper "Enhanced Matte Paper - Formerly Archival Matte Paper"  It's a true, deep, and almost completely non-reflective matte photo paper.  You can find it on Epson's web site.  No other matte paper I know of comes close to it for non-reflectivity.

I print on a Canon S9000 Bubble Jet printer.

The matte paper is extremely sensitive to abrasion and to marking of any kind.  I went for about 4 months with my faces made from simply that paper and nothing else, and they were fine (but that was only four months).  Then, when I redid them in November, I sprayed them with an art store product - Krylon "Preserve It!" (Digital Photo and Paper Protectant.)  I used about three or four coats of the protectant and the results were excellent.  The main thing is that the Krylon stuff barely affected the matte quality at all.  Even with that preserving spray on them, they are way more "matte" than any other matte paper would be without any spray at all.

I cut them out with a nifty little product from Olfa - a compass knife.  It's about 7 bucks, comes with 6 or seven blades, and will cut a perfect circle up to 4 or 5 inches in diameter.  I even used it for cutting the plastic for my plates.  (Granted, you have to be patient.  I would say I had to retrace the cut 30 to 40 times to get through the plastic - but it worked well enough - taking 4 or 5 minutes for each plate.  I used a somewhat brittle and rigid plastic from a cheap, dollar store desk top picture holder.  It was similar (though not quite as brittle as) a cd case type plastic. (My original speedo plate shattered into a number of pieces - riding too fast I guess. 

(Before I bought the Olfa I stuck my exacto knife in a kid's school compass, and drew or cut circles like that.  It worked okay, but not as well as the Olfa knife.)

I painted the home-made plates flat white on one side, and then (3m) spray-glued the Preserve It coated photo faces to the non-painted side of the plate(s).

[Quail "Owner of the comfortable k8"]

ElCheapo

I am ready to buy, but I understand busy.  Just let us know when the K8s are ready.

Terry2

[Raul CB750K1]

If I'm not wrong, bubble jet ink will fade away in some weeks when exposed to UV light, but somebody here will surely be better informed than me.

Raul

[Bob Wessner]

They have made improvements along these lines, but almost any color exposed to direct sunlight (UV) will suffer over time. Blues and reds seem to be the most vulnerable. I wonder if there isn't some sort of transparent UV material one could put over the guage face, or the lens itself, that might slow this down? Anyone ever tried something like this?

[Terry in Australia]

I'm a bit suspicious of printing my own decals, a local sign writing firm do vinyl decals in all shapes and sizes with a special sign printer, so I think I'll copy some gauge faces off the net and drop them onto a disk, then get them to print them for me. Cheers, Terry.