Vapor blasting service

Brings back memories, had the orange & brown Z1 with a hooker header when they first came out.

 

I have another Z1 un-done, and I think I will keep that one for myself, although they are fetching stupid money at the moment. The orange and brown I think would have been a 73, the first year with the black engine. That is the one everyone goes nuts for, including me. In 1973 I was 12, and walking around with a woody for the big bore streetbikes of the day, which has quite a lot to do with what I do for a living these days .

 

OOTV, Gator, thanks a ton for the good words. In answer to your question there is somewhere around 10K in this bike (not including the bike!), 3K or so just in the engine rebuild, transmission parts, bearings, machine shop work, yedda. It gets spendy fast, and the problem becomes the closer you get to it being perfect, the more obsessive it gets stamping out things that aren't. It's a good profession for a guy with a mild case of OCD (who, me?), but not what I would call 'lucrative' . But I love it all the same.

 

Thanks for the response. I'm always curious what people are willing to spend to restore certain vehicles, as a lot times it's an emotional attachment that drives to willingness to spend money, yet other times it's the pride of owning something that many cannot that does. Either way nice job on the restoration!

 

Wow. Awesome work. :roll:

 

Thank you very much. The subject of valuation comes up quite a lot in this work, and it is of course 100% subjective. Given that the entire machine sold for something like $2K in 1975, why the heck is an exhaust system for it worth $1K today? It defies logic on the surface, but that is what I just paid for an original system for the other Z1 I have. I was lucky to find it.

These bikes are rarer then hens' teeth in Europe, which is part of the appeal for its owner, and there's just no supply. In fact a really nice unrestored original bike can be had for less than this one cost to restore, and will likely retain its value better too. But this particular bike was built to be ridden and enjoyed, and so the non-original components I added like the suspension improvements, electronic ignition, upgraded bearings and brakes are all plusses in the eyes of the guy that owns it.

 

Let's talk about wheels - we have been doing some interesting wheel projects mixed in with everything else.

We are restoring a 1981 Honda CB750F on the other side of the shop and those normally wear skinny Comstars stock. Those are OK but my customer wanted to do something a little more custom so we hunted up a set of 1100F wheels, plus an 1100F swingarm and front axle and put that all together. But they were a little tired-looking, so a quick trip through the vapor blaster for cleaning and to roughen the surface in preparation for paint was called for.





We pulled the rotors off and sent them off to TrueDisk for grinding and drilling.



Then we masked them up for repainting, using the truing/balancing stand to hold them as we worked. Note that we did not remove the factory paint, it was stuck down there quite well, we just cleaned it and degreased it and painted over it. Worked great, saved steps.





Then we masked up the balance stand, brought it into the spray booth, and painted them.



Finally a new set of bearings and spacers were installed, you know, WHILE WE WERE THERE, and of course new tires and stems, slightly wider doe to the wider wheels. Bueno. This all worked really well. The wheels and rotors look new, and were easier to prep and paint because they were spotless including in all the crannies and crevices.





Last week a customer bought a set of vintage Lester mags for a custom SOHC bike he is building. These Lesters were in great condition, straight with pretty much zero in the way of dings or flaws, but the paint and the aluminum was tired-looking. He's a big fan of the vapor blast finish as is, and so the project was to strip the original paint all the way off, and then clearcoat them. So that's what we did.

The patient(s):











We vapor blasted them, stripping the paint in the process:





Then these got sprayed with Eastwood's Diamond Clear. This photo is actually a test wheel from a Yamaha that we were playing with - we shot clear on one side and matte on the other, and the consensus was that the glossy clear over the satin vapor blast finish was gorgeous.



Presto: They look fantastic.







We did the brake panel and sprocket carrier while we had them, and also blasted his brake rotors, which are also getting cleared on their centers. Check out the brake shoes too, put those babies right back in that wheel.



Rotors before and after:







Happy wheels!

 

I never get tired of looking at your pics. :drool:

 

Then YOU sir, might like to try your hand at restoring something you always wanted to own before long (if you don't already). That's how I got the bug . It really is great fun making old or tired motorcycles look and perform like new.

Thank you for the good words, I really do appreciate them.

 

Are you at the IMS show in Long Beach this weekend!? I'm here showing my wares with Ikon Suspension at booth 878. Come visit and say hi, and get yourself a big fat discount on a great pair of Ikon shocks or springs!

 

Excited to announce some news for the new year that we have been hatching for a little while.

FREE SHIPPING ON VAPOR BLAST PROJECTS BY RESTOCYCLE!




Effective 1/1/2017 RestoCycle is now offering free return shipping to our vapor blast customers for their projects, as well as deeply discounted inbound shipping. We would not be able to do this without the support of our shipping partner UPS, as they have extended additional discounts to us in order to make this possible.

Here's how this works:

Visit our website to get an idea of what your project might cost by viewing the representative projects gallery, or better yet, complete the online ordering form and request a quote. You can easily upload photos of your project right there on the form and we will get right back to you with a firm quote.

On the order form, include the weight and dimensions of your box(es). We will use that to generate inbound shipping labels that we will email to you, which will cost about half of retail shipping costs at places like the UPS Store, or PakMail.

Print and tape the label to your (well packed) box and drop it at any nearby UPS Store or depot for free. The closest drop off locations will be in the instructions on your label.

We will bill you at cost for the inbound shipment, along with the charges for your project when it is complete, via an emailed invoice. Click right in the emailed invoice to pay online with a credit card, and your parts (and shipment tracking info) will be on their way back to you just a few days after we get them.

Click here to see a gallery of representative projects and their pricing: http://www.restocycle.com/what-does-vapor-blasting-cost

Click here to request a quote on a vapor blasting project: http://www.restocycle.com/vapor-blasting-order-form

THANK YOU ALL for your support of our business these past two years. Your support and the great feedback we have received along the way has been fantastic, and we are very excited to be able to offer this to you moving forward. Please be in touch anytime with questions or comments, we're always glad to hear from you.


Sincerely,

Nils Menten
RestoCycle LLC
Tucson, Arizona, USA
nils@restocycle.com
http://www.restocycle.com
(520) 308-3705

 

Hey everyone,

Haven't posted much recently, have been up to my ears in some exciting stuff this summer.

The vapor blast work has been great - we got a little slower in May when everyone put down their wrenches and pulled on their helmets. But even so, we are steady this year where we were very quiet in years past during these months, and that is WITHOUT me doing much in the way of marketing because...



Holy smokes we bought a building. Yes we did That's 7,500 square feet of industrial-zoned goodness, in three suites. RestoCycle is in the last suite to the far left. We rent the other two.

This is about 5 miles from the old location, which made moving a little bit easier than it could have been, but even so, it's been a busy 6 weeks while we shifted all of our gear and our operations over to the new space, and renovated it as we did.

The building was solid but tired.









In the past 6 weeks we've painted it, installed new floors, a ton of electrical service upgrades, fixed the swamp coolers and some leaky plumbing, replaced the air conditioners, installed LED lighting, pallet racks, caught-up on 15 years of neglected landscaping, and so much more.











We took the opportunity to upgrade our compressor as we did, which allowed us to limit our downtime on the vapor blast work to just a few days. Once the new compressor was installed, we picked up the vapor blaster, slung it in a trailer, and 3 days later everything was setup and operational, good to go.





The new space is great. We have roughly double the square footage, plus a back yard and three grade-level roll-up doors. We have a kitchen and break room, a deck off the back door that is as good for eating lunch and drinking beer (at the end of the day!) as it is for washing a bike. With the addition of the pallet rack and a forklift we can now store our parts and motorcycles and work on them without a 5-step choreography having to take place first. We're also very close to several of our main collaborators, and that has already made that work easier and better.













So there's your update from RestoCycle. We have several bikes on the lifts again, more projects queued up, and more we plan to do as we settle into our new digs, but things are great.

Thank you as always for your support of our business.

Nils Menten
RestoCycle LLC

New Address!

RestoCycle LLC
3476 S Dodge Blvd., Suite 3
Tucson, AZ 85713
(520) 308-3705
http://www.restocycle.com
http://www.ikonshocksusa.com

 

Congrats, Nils! Looking good. one of these days i'll make it over for a visit.

 

Please do! Call ahead just so I know you are coming, 520-308-3705 is the shop number. You are most welcome. And thanks!

 

Wonderful news! Good things happening to good people always brings a smile to my face. Congrats, the place looks fantastic.

 

Thank you very much, I truly appreciate that. I am having a ball, working hard, learning a ton. Best wishes to you too!

 

ok Nils, Please tell us more how you are doing in your 'new digs after a couple of years'...

& don't forget pictures... lol

 

Bumped into one of the Restocycle guys, Alex, today at the fabrication shop. He was riding a very minty H2 750, in blue. Immaculate. Super chill cat. The Restocycle guys are really good folks.

 

I had an H2 back in the day but only for a couple of months. Stopping and handling were scary but the motor was awesome. Traded for a KZ 1000.