Side Cover and Badges Restoration (lots of photos)

I thought I'd post photos as I go so people can see what this process entails. If anyone sees an error or has a better idea please let us know.



Tank Badges - These badges were off the original tank which I still have. It appears that one of the previous owners had tried to restore them with hobby enamels, which simply do not hold up outside. The badges are cracked and brittle in addition to being scraped up. I realize you can get a new set for around $50, but right now I don't have the $50 to spare and I wanted to see what I could do with these. Also, new badges are black and gold, but I wanted black and silver to go with my planned paint scheme.



"Custom" painted side cover - I needed the right side cover just like about every other XJ550 Seca owner out there it seems. I found a matched set of "custom" painted side covers and seat faring on ebay and managed to win the set for less than the price of a decent factory finished right cover by itself. Unfortunately the "custom" paint was about an inch thick and had orange peel like 80 grit sandpaper. I decided to do the left cover first as practice so that I wouldn't ruin the rare right cover.



It appears that a previous owner simply painted over the badge and then sanded the letters back to the plastic base. I had already picked some of the blue paint off the badge before I took the photo.



Badge removed - I used a wooden wedge to poke at the trim tape holding the badge to the cover and gently pry the badge loose. You could use fishing line to do this as well. As it turns out, the badges were never removed for several different paint jobs. You can see the original pearl white factory finish and how thick the subsequent coats of paint are.



Before...
The freshly removed side cover badge prior to being placed in the stripper.



...And after
This is my first attempt to restore one of the badges. After seeing the close-up I decided I couldn't live with the little blemish on the 0, so I have since sanded the 550 and repainted it. I feel the silver letters on black goes with my plan paint scheme better than gold or white letters.



Plastic safe stripper - The problem with most automotive paint strippers is that they tend to eat most plastics. Fortunately because I'm a bit of a geek and still build plastic scale models as a hobby, I knew of a relatively mild stripper that is safe on most plastics. You can get the Polly S Easy-Lift-Off paint and decal remover (ELO) in pint and quart containers at some local hobby shops.



Badges in stripping bin - I used a shoe box sized plastic bin for a soak tank for the ELO.



Badges are soaking in the stripping solution. Once they have soaked for 15 to 20 minutes you can take an old toothbrush to them to remove the old paint.



Stripper starting to work on the side cover - On larger items like the side covers, you can brush on the ELO and let it set for 15 minutes, then reapply.



Brushing on another coat of ELO - Just brushed on another coat of the stripper. At this point you can scrub the surface with the paint brush or a tooth brush and start removing the coats of paint.



Another layer of paint emerges - After the third or fourth coating of ELO, a nice dark metallic blue paint emerged. Unfortunately it must have been an entirely different type of paint as the ELO didn't seem to effect it much at all.



Ironically this final layer of paint was actually pretty close to the color I plan to paint the tank and body panels. If I want to remove this last layer of paint, I will have to sand it off.



Stripped and ready for sanding - Finished with the ELO and washed in water. If you strain the ELO through a coffee filter or a piece of cheese cloth, you can save and reuse it. Just don't dump it on the ground.



Broken badge - Unfortunately one of the tank badges broke up while I was scrubbing the old paint off of it. I was expecting that this would happen as it was cracked and brittle. I'm going to try to epoxy it back together and reenforce it before I do much more to it. Of note: it appears that the tank badges were originally plated gold and then the letters masked off and the background painted black. Once the letters were unmasked they would appear gold on a black background. I think the black letters on a gold background looks fairly striking also.



Repair and prep materials
These are some of the materials that I used to repair the tank badges and prepare the side covers and badges for paint.



Materials used
Adhesives: Plastruct Plastic Weld, Welder contact adhesive
Fillers: MMD/Squadron White Putty, Bondo Glazing & Spot Putty
Abrasives: 400 & 800 grit wet/dry sandpaper, foam sanding block, various grits of Flexi-File sanding sticks



Sanded side cover
I hand sanded the side cover with 400 and then 800 grit sandpaper till it was nice and smooth. I decided that since it was already so sooth and I was going to use a primer anyway, that I didn't need to sand all the blue paint off. Hopefully I won't regret this decision.



Before and so far...
The top side cover is where I started, the bottom one is ready for primer.



Broken tank badge repair
I used Plastruct Plastic Weld to glue the tank badge back together. I have already glued the pieces of the "Y" and "A" back together in this photo.



Welding badge pieces together
Carefully apply Plastruct Plastic Weld to both edges and wait 30 seconds or so for the solvent to soften the plastic a little. Join the two pieces and hold them together for a couple of minutes until they fuse together and take a set, then set them aside for a while to dry.



Badge back in one piece
After drying, the tank badge is back in one piece, but still pretty brittle.



Space to reenforce
Because this 26 year old piece of plastic is still brittle, I will fill the recesses in the back of it with a reenforcing coat of glue before attempting to fill and sand the front.



Starting to fill in the recesses
Here I have started filling the recesses in the back of the badge with glue. I opted to a softer, more flexible glue instead of a hard epoxy so that the badge can still be flexed around the curvature of the tank.



Reenforced badges
I reenforced both badges with the Welder Contact Adhesive. I wound up giving them two coats each.



After filling in the backs of the tank badges with a second coat, I let the adhesive cure for two days. The badges now have a more substantial feel to them. They no longer feel like they are about to break apart at any moment.



As you can see in this close-up, some parts of the second coat stands proud of the edges of the badge. I have started trimming it level on the "Y" with an Exacto knife. I may take my Dremel tool to it to speed things up a bit.



After hitting the badge that I glued back together with a sanding stick, it became very evident the areas that I will have to use some filler on.



In addition to the cracked areas the badge has some deep scratches that will have to be filled.

 

Very generous of you to take the time and effort to create a detailed account of the finer points of stripping plastic panels.ELO sounds like a choice product. Wish I had been privy to this information about 4 sidecovers ago!

 

the SECA badge you have done, looks pretty good, did you just brush it on, what silver paint did you use?
are you going with rattle can spray on your panels?
i did the YAMAHA tank badges with 5mm pin stripe, looks ok.

 

I used three different paints on the badges. Once I got the badge smoothed to my satisfaction with sandpaper and sanding sticks, I laid a base coat of the Krylon Fusion gloss black. I carefully picked out the lettering in silver using a Rust-oleum metallic leafing pen (they have them in gold also). I clear coated the badge with DuPont A-7480S Acrylic clear coat.

I'll post more on the badges soon.

 

I accidently peeled the gold off of the upper left arm of the "Y" on the tank badge on my Seca 750. Can the gold leafing pen be used to make a nice looking repair or should the whole letter be stripped off and redone?

 

The gold leafing pen is basically just a paint marker with metallic gold paint in it. It will not give you a reflective gold finish like the other gold plated letters. The same goes for the silver pen. From a distance it might look okay, but up close it would look kind of funky. You would need to sand the plating off of all the letters and then paint them all for it to look uniform.
You might want to talk to Wizard about how he used the foil trim tape on his badges. I think that would match up with the existing gold plating better than the paint.

If you do decide to go the paint marker route, I found mine at Home Depot.

 

Thanks very much for the info, I had actually thought about getting some gold leaf and trying to apply it but don't know how hard that would be. The gold pin striping sounds like it may be worth a shot, I had not thought of it.

 

Added more photos and info to original post...

 

Tom; You're not the only model builder here. What's your preference? I pretty much stick to 1/72 scale, mostly early WW2 or prewar (Golden Wings) aircraft.

 

On aircraft, I mainly build 1/48th scale fighters from 1935 to the present. I have more automotive models, tending to favor European sports and racing cars but also including selected Detroit iron like Mustangs, Corvettes, and various Mopars. I also build a bit of everything else like real space and sci-fi models. I even have a few motorcycle kits, Italian bikes mainly, but including an Aoshima XJ400D kit that will make a nice starting point to do a model of my 550 Seca.

Unfortunately I have collected enough kits for several lifetimes worth of building, so I starting to sell many kits on ebay to get my collection back under control and get rid of items that I'm no longer interested in like WW1 and pre-war 1/72nd scale aircraft.

 

So do I! Original Seca, looks just like ours but no YICS. Got it off eBay.

I have advanced "AMS" and have found that 1/72 biplanes will drive a man to... well, anyway, pre-war I might be interested in. Whatcha got? Sorry to hijack your thread, PM me a list.

 

i had no idea they ever made xj model kits does anybody know where i can get one or maybe a diecast of some kind

 

Your best bet is going to be ebay or some of the old kit vendors listed in Scale Auto or Fine Scale Modeler. I think I saw a kit of a Maxim once, but the XJ400D and a couple of bizarre varients of the 400 are the only Seca kits I've seen. I'll start another thread with photos of XJ models that I can find.

 

Here's the one I found:

 

Added a few more photos to original post.

 

I've checked ebay numerous times, All I ever seem to find is the 400's

 

I'm beginning to think the XJ400 and the much newer XJR400 are the only Seca kits out there. I've seen many Yamaha sportbike kits and even a Virago kit from Tamiya, but I still seem to recall seeing a Maxim kit somewhere. I'll have to research it a bit more.

I have created an XJ models thread in General Chat at the following link:
http://xjbikes.com/Forums/viewtopic/t=14469.html

Let's move the model discussion there and get this tread back on topic.