[heapes]

This post was started by JayNJeep for me and my resto on a 125. I wasn't in a place to make a post and he was helping me with some ideas. With all the good suggestions and much consideration here is what we came up with that worked rather well. The first picture is of the original tin in need of a restoration. We obtained some fine line tape and blue "anondized" paint made by Dupli-color. Both were available at O'Reily's parts store. The bare aluminum was polished with paste compound and the whole tin was cleaned with wax and grease remover. The black pin stripe surrounding the blue, the "cub cadet box", and the silver around the throttle control were all taped with the fine line tape. Regular masking tape was then used on other areas not to be painted. All the letering (F--N-R, Start, Slow, Fast) was carefully colored in using a grease pencil, also called a China marker. The tin was painted and allowed to dry. We then used a sharpe knife and "cut" the outline of the the letters. This gives a sharpe edge for the paint so the paint doesn't chip off. When a good outline has been made the paint was easily scraped off the grease marking. A light cleaning with wax and grease remover then removed the remaining red markings. Total time invested not including paint dry time was about 90 minutes. Thanks for all the suggestions!