Yep, that’s right, the small things. Sometimes we need to step back from the big project and thing about the small details that we want to add. And that is exactly what last week was about.

The fuel cap. I have this beautiful, shiny pop-up fuel cap that is screaming to have some sort of embellishment adorned across it. And what better slogan than the good old “Don’t Fuckin’ Die!”, a good daily reminder of what not to do.

But how was I going to do it? I really want to steer clear of vinyl stickers, they’re just too easy. So I came up with a game plan and headed to the workshop and fired up the laser engraver. Taking a piece of aluminium bar I spray painted it and then lasered out the word “Test” 3 times. These 3 words were the, hehe, you guessed it, test areas for various chemical trials. First was copper sulphate, then electrolysis and finally vinegar. The Copper Sulphate left a nice copper layer behind, but vanished when acetone was used to remove the rest of the paint. Electrolysis worked quite well, but in the end of the day it isn’t really the route I wanted to go. And the vinegar, well, that did diddly squat.

So it was back to the drawing board.

After some sleepless hours and poking around the workshop, I realised I could use the crazy wide electrical tape I have as a mask and then laser out the design, and then copper gild it. So with new found enthusiasm it was back to the workshop. I hunted around and found an old circular saw blade as my base and got to lasering.

Once lasered I needed to dig out the parts that would be gilded, airbrush on the Size, remove the mask and then lay down the copper leaf. All in all it really doesn’t look too bad. I still need to run a few more tests to see which way I really want to go, but at least I seem to be going down the right path now.

Saturday was a good day, the weather was amazing, a summer break in the middle of winter. This meant I could get some painting done. I finished off cleaning up some pieces, last few strokes of the wire brush and then I could start. I think this is the most care I have ever put into paint work. I cleaned everything properly, wore gloves, hung every item up and layered the paint on thinly with many many coats. And, I even managed to not touch them for over 24 hours in order to let the paint cure, proud of me.

Other little things done over the weekend was swapping out the rear shocks between the 883 and the 1200, I want the longer travel shocks on the 1200 for a better ride on the rougher roads. I do foresee myself buying longer shocks for the 883 soon though, as the short ones are gonna be as uncomfortable as all hell.

I also realised that the hooks on my tent carrier line up perfectly with the holes on the new handle bars, so that is a very awesome coincidence.