Back-to-original Paintwork
and reproduction decals
Check out the "Bike Colours" page for H1 H2 and all other Stripe kits
and Decals
 Now
here is a minefield if ever there was one!
Rick Brett has been involved with the repainting of Kawasaki’s for
around 20 years now. Over the years he has commissioned many of the UK’s top
painters to restore “Triples” paintwork back to original. There have been so
many trials and tribulations over the years that a whole book could be devoted
to the subject.
RB’s
can now claim some of the top show winning bikes in Europe amongst their
customers: virtually every triple to win a major show in the UK was painted via
RB’s. This accolade has not come easily.
The most
renowned “motorcycle paintwork specialists” in the U.K. now charge
around £520 + tax! For this you get your original
bodywork sanded down and repainted as quickly as possible for maximum profits!
Paint specialists can repaint a “plastic fantastic” in less than a day: they
then throw some decals on and charge £1,000! Why on earth should they waste
their time with painting a time consuming job like a triple?
At RB’s
however we pride ourselves on quality. Bodywork is paint stripped and then glass
blasted back to bare metal, from there it is painted by experts to show-winning
standards and guess what ? it is still less expensive than the Big Boys!
I recently had a guy turn up
on a H2 that he had spent THOUSANDS of pounds restoring, I asked him where he
got the graphics from? "off Ebay . . . why, are they wrong?"
They were indeed VERY wrong, he had paid the same price as we sell them for in
the U.K. but PLUS shipping and Import duties, so he had in fact paid £20+ more
than they would have cost him from us, not only that but the £500 he had paid
for the respray was down the drain, I gave him a set of the CORRECT decals out
of sympathy . . .. but he still had to bite the bullet and have it resprayed
again . .
Check out our bike colours page
Bike colours - if you don't see it then ask, we also do all the frame decals including the
VIN tags (headstock stickers)
Our colour is always correct. Why? Because we hold the largest stock of original
colour matches in Europe!
Examples
Here are some examples - click the picture for a close up:
Decals
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| The graphics
produced by RB's are so accurate that we even build in the quite appalling
faults in the original graphics - note the not-so-smooth lines of this 350
decal: as original! |
| If you have a
pal that can spray or if you fancy having a go yourself then we have the
best stocks of accurate decal sets for the triples! Again, click for a
close-up. Frame decals and headstock identity
labels are also available from RB’s. |
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| We can also make decals to ANY
specification - this particular "gel" sidepanel was made to fit
a "Millyard special" H2
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| Frame decal sets, either in full
sets or single decals. For the Z1, Z1a, Z1b, Z900, H1, H1a, H1b, H1e,
KH500, H2, H2a, H2b, H2c. |
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| VIN tags for the headstock are
special order and cost £10.00 each. |
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| Brake master cylinder cap decal
£2.50
Kawasaki Race team decal £5.00
KH400 Ignition Box decal £3.00
L R C tag set £3.50 |
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Kawasaki paintwork can vary by many different shades, there was very little
manufacturing consistency in the early 1970's. Decals were fitted to tanks at
different angles, and often different decals by different manufacturers were
fitted. The colours of body panels would vary by many different shades depending
on when the bodywork was made, it was also common practice for the factory to
respray new tanks to a different colour! I have seen for example, an Orange S2a
tank that was resprayed by the factory to S2a Blue.
Here is an example of Three New Old Stock H2c petrol tanks:
ALL New and ALL different shades of Purple.
Not only were the shades of paint different but also the type of fuel tank
was often different. Many fuel tanks from later models were sprayed at the
factory for a direct replacement for an earlier model. The Blue 1972 H2 is a
prime example.
In 1973 the original supply of H2 tanks was exhausted and the factory then
sprayed a batch of tanks from the H2a (with the locking fuel cap) in the 1972
Blue H2 colours, In 1974 if you wished to buy a 1972 Blue h2 tank you would have
been sold a 1974 H2b tank but painted in the colours of the 1972 Blue bike.
Basically it is possible to have 3 types of Genuine factory petrol tanks with
three different types of fuel cap.
There is also One final anomaly, in 1973 the factory produced a batch
of fuel tanks (only?) with the similar stripes to the S2a - I can only assume
that this was a total mistake by someone, my own theory is that someone in the
paint department confused a batch of H2a tanks with a batch of S2a tanks - these
tanks were then sold off at a discount - the problem was that as far as I am
aware there were never any tail units produced for the H2 with the S2a graphics.
It is impossible to produce graphics for of the models of triple, the H1e &
H1d are a prime example, the central colour band comes around the rear of the
tank and it is very difficult to get a decal to replicate this as the decal
creases badly when it is formed around the rear, therefore, Kawasaki Hand
painted ALL H1d & H1e stripes onto the tank, if you look underneath the rear of
an original tank you will see the original marks from the original line masks.
As these stripes were always painted on if is VERY common for the dimensions of
the band to vary this band width can vary as much as 3cm!!! Here are a couple of
typical examples, a little extreme perhaps but both are original paint.
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