Let’s hit “PLAY” again!

In the last update, I mentioned that I was pausing the restoration in April to do a major refurbishment on my new house. Well, it's now New Year's Eve 2024 and the work on the house has reached a point where I can have a more sensible work/life balance, so I'm hoping to spend some time over the next couple of months getting the V50 largely finished and on the road.

I bought all of the "bodywork" back from my temporary storage place a couple of months ago but only just managed to make a start yesterday. I had quickly sprayed some top coats of colour on in April, mainly to protect things in storage, so was expecting some more prep before finishing. I'd fillied in a dent on the petrol tank but the swage line wasn't quite right and was quite obvious, so I rubbed the paint back, refilled and re-profiled to arrive at a much more acceptable result.

I have decided that I really didn't like the colour that I'd chosen, so took the opportunity to change it. It was way too bright for the style of bike and I instead chose a classy dark pearlescent bluey grey VW colour (Blue Graphite). This has gone on very dark but I do like it. It may lighten up a touch once the clear coat goes on - time will tell.

There were quite a few small pock marks on the various bits so I used some stopping filler and rubbed back down. 

Then I rinsed everything off in the shower! (One of the advantages of living alone!)

The tank, rear mudguard and fairing all needed some additional priming: I did all of the areas to avoid a patchy finish.

Here's the finished result for now. I'll let the paint harden for a few days now and then I need to apply silver pinstripes to the tank and fairing, before applying clearcoat.

Then I need to mask up to spray in some satin black accent panels on everything except the mudguards.

Next week I'm visiting my friends who are kindly storing lots of things for me and will bring all of the bike parts back with me so I can get started on reassembly. Too exciting!