Wednesday, January 11, 2017

Put a Tiger On The Tank!


Happy New year!

I thought I would post a quick update and product review;   I have spent the last couple months working on the Matchless G9,  mostly gathering parts and getting a tonne of stuff powder coated.

Powder coating has become my preferred method of cleaning up old parts,  especially the black stuff. (I will get some snaps of all the lovely and shining bits in a future post) Now that the shop I use does sandblasting as well, it saves me a lot of time.  It is affordable, durable and looks very sharp.  This works very well when the surface of the item is in good shape,  but what do you when there are dents or damage?




Here are the Matchless tanks, (oil and gas) both with some damage/pitting.  I was certain that I would have use a stud welder to pull the dents and hope for the best.  I really didn't want to get these items painted or bondo and paint them myself.  The side cover and tool box are good and solid but badly pitted from years of neglect.  A decent set would have been around the $400.00 mark so I needed an easy solution!







Fortunately for me,  the powder coat shop had just the thing for me;  Tiger Epo Strong epoxy.  The fellow I deal with had purchased some to do a gas tank, had some left over and sold it to me at a discount.  This is similar to bondo, mixing the epoxy and hardener in a 2:1 ratio.  Unlike Bondo, you have time to work and shape it as it takes 24 hours to cure at room temperature.  Application is done in 5mm layers and then you can sand and shape as you would any other variety of filler.  Once satisfied, the item cures in the oven at 400F and can then be coated.





Here is what the product looks like, mine came complete with instructions in German!


The epoxy goes on quite smoothly and fills in dents easily.



So far so good,  I am slowly working with the stuff and am happy with the results;  The final test will of course be the final coating.   I hope to have that done in the next month or so.  







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