Using Anodised Bolts For Rebuilding Your Motorcycle

If you are restoring your motorcycle, you may have seen or heard about anodised bolts but did not know all the talk is about. Maybe you would like to know what colour you can get anodised fasteners in, or what type of material they are available in. Hopefully this blog post will clear up some of your questions with regards to anodised nuts and bolts.

The most important decision to make is what material the nuts and bolts should be manufactured from. If you are looking for anodised fasteners your choices are limited to aluminium and titanium. This is due to the fact that not all materials can be anodised.

If the nuts and bolts is to be used in high impact applications such as brakes or suspension mounts, Titanium should be used as it has a stronger tensile strength. If you are fastening wind shields or the petrol cap for example, aluminium nuts can be used.

The second important consideration when choosing the type of anodised fasteners is the colours that are available in the different metals. Mots times aluminium bolts will have a bigger range of colours than the Titanium counterparts. This should however not interfere with your safety considerations, if the required colour is not available in Titanium for a high high stress application, rather opt for a silver or alternative available colour in Titanium or stainless steel.

Some people may wish to ignore bolts that are anodised a colour and opt for the ordinary silver ones. This is especially true when doing vintage reproductions or similar motorcycles. Even in this case, the plain silver anodised bolts will have an advantage over plain steel bolts, and that is they do not tarnish or rust.

Rust is not an issue with bolts that have been anodised because of the specialised chemical process they are put through. With out discussing the process of anodising, the parts are placed into a solution with current running through the parts and solution. This process also chemically hardens and seals the metal, which is why it will not show signs of tarnishing or rust.

Choosing your graphic application method

When choosing on the design for your newly rebuilt custom motorcycle you have a number options. Will the design be painted on, or will it be done with vinyl stickers. There are good and bad points with each and that is what we will be looking at today.

Having your design painted on can be considerably more expensive than using vinyl stickers. Some factors that go into the pricing is the tools that are needed for spray painting, and the vast artistic skills required to paint a design onto a motorbike. This is normally out of the reach of most hobbyists who enjoy doing the work themselves.

Time constraints may play a role in what you are able to do. While a nice custom bike could take up to two weeks or more, applying vinyl decals will not take more than a day or two for a novice and only a few hours if you have worked with vinyl decals before.

Something to think about is how easy it would be to replace a part or the whole design should it become damaged for some reason. For stickers it is a simple matter of removing the scratched section and ordering a replacement from a local supplier that would be exactly the same as the original. With painted on graphics you will need the specialised tools and artistic skills along with trying to match possibly faded paint colours.

Using vinyl decals for your motorcycles graphics on the other hand is much simpler for the average home rebuild. Vinyl motorcycle stickers are available from a number of suppliers, including customised designs. Due to the fact that they are printed from a computer the costs are considerably less, sometimes by a factor of ten or more.

Hopefully these tips have helped with deciding what sort of graphics you are going to doing on your custom or race replica motorcycle.

Top 5 motorcycle graphics in World Superbikes 2012

With the first World Superbike race of 2012 recently underway, now would be a good time to have a look at the five best motorcycle graphics of the SBK season. These are my picks for 2012 and some of the reasons why. What do you think?

1. Ducati Red Devils Roma

SBK Red Devils graphics

The graphics on the Red Devils Ducati is very clean and crisp, with the wavy Italian flag pin striping dividing the red and white sections. This is the most elegant graphics to be seen in the 2012 SBK season.

2. Honda Pro Ride Motorsports

SBK Pro Ride Motorsports graphics

The Pro Ride Honda SBK team have come up with a really great design that works well on the new Honda motorcycle. All the lines flow well around the bikes curves adding to the overall raciness of the bike. It would be a real shame to see one of these on its side.

3. Aprilia ParkinGO MTC

SBK ParkinGO MTC graphics

This ParkinGO MTC Aprilia is far off its usual colours this season. Opting for a blue with a city skyline across the fairings that sticks out against the white background.  It works really well with the red Virgin colours. This is also one of the few bikes this year that does not have trim around the rims.

4. Ducati Liberty Racing Effenbert

The Liberty Racing Effenbert team have come up with great graphics for their Ducati motorcycle. Most of the side looks like the Effenbert lager. It is finished off nicely with the Ducati logo near the bottom and a black section for advertising. The Ducati's red frame really sticks out with the light coloured graphics, much more noticable than on the normal red Dukes.

5. BMW Motorrad Motorsport

BMW Motorrad Motorsports is a more classic BMW graphic. The have their usual white and blue colours with a red trim. The metallic blue looks fantastic, especially in some decent light. The bottom faring has the standard black section for most of the sponsor logos.

Which are your favourite SBK graphics for the 2012 Superbike season?