Gel coating a fiberglass roadster tank

Rohan said:

It would be good if some more owners of fiberglass parts in fireflake colors could add to this ? Several sales of those 2 tone red and silver tanks and tailpieces have mentioned the flakes are in the gelcoat - but as a previous thread on fireflakes mentioned, modern spray-on epoxy products could well appear to be like this.

Have seen some JPN replica faring bits, and the colors are painted on.
In some cases by a PO with a brush, it seems...

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I saw two 68 Commandos - one a two-tone candy/silver, the other that two-tone brown/biege that was in Baxter's space at Barber. You couldn't really tell on the brown one whether the tan was in the gelcoat because the bike was pretty rough. The candy one, however, was a silver flake gelcoat with the sides and center part of the tail section masked off and red candy sprayed over.

BillT said:

I saw two 68 Commandos - one a two-tone candy/silver, the other that two-tone brown/biege that was in Baxter's space at Barber. You couldn't really tell on the brown one whether the tan was in the gelcoat because the bike was pretty rough. The candy one, however, was a silver flake gelcoat with the sides and center part of the tail section masked off and red candy sprayed over.

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I just had a proper look at the silver tank I'm prepping, and it does appear to be in the gelcoat, as it's been sanded and still looks silver - definitely not the case with the blue stuff I've been working on. Evidently the silver doesn't look any the worse for being sanded back, unlike the coloured flakes.

It seems there are a few different techniques being applied. The '70s fibreglass in solid colours are in the gelcoat; Combat Interstate tanks still have a visible seam running down the middle which detracts from 'originality' when sanded off.

I prefer steel tanks

B+Bogus said:

It seems there are a few different techniques being applied. The '70s fibreglass in solid colours are in the gelcoat; Combat Interstate tanks still have a visible seam running down the middle which detracts from 'originality' when sanded off.

I prefer steel tanks

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I do too

Got some 850 steel sidecovers, that had been 'painted' orange in some sort of epoxy finish (like fiberglass). Hard as a rock, and near impossible to remove. Decided to just paint over it, after flatting it down, which was not so easy to do. How do you remove that stuff ??