It’s not often a custom scooter project goes without a hitch and this one is no different. In part 2 we dropped the metalwork round at Riding Dirty Customs and discussed the paintwork in great detail.
That was in January and we had a five-week schedule to get the paintwork finished. The plan was to ship it over to Rimini Lambretta Centre by mid-March so it could be built in time for their open day at the end of April.
January
Although the frame had been sent over from Rimini in primer, Rich needed to get it back to bare metal before he started working on it, so it was blasted. That uncovered a few problems and the lifting rear end needed some extra strengthening, so the frame ended up at Faircharm Restorations to be welded up.
Claudio’s hydraulic rear end modifications had only been tack welded and needed finishing and strengthening before work could start… or it would be likely that the 265 Scuderia engine would rip the frame to bits.
26th February
To begin with, things were going well, our little project WhatsApp group chat was full of banter, ideas and regular updates from the RDC crew (and other people involved in the project).
The Kingfisher Blue basecoat was on and things were progressing well and very quickly. Then things took a sudden turn for the worse.
The owner of the scooter, Chris Macnamara didn’t like the front end or panels once they were lined out and painted. The paint had already changed from the metalflake agreed and turned into candy because Rich couldn’t make the complicated design work in metalflake. The changes to the design weren’t as the client wanted so I asked Rich to hang fire, rather than carrying on that night and making more work for himself to get things back on track.
Come and get it
You know how it is when you’ve put your heart and soul into something, then something happens to upset the karma. RDC had already sunk lots of hours and pulled out all the stops to get the paintwork underway as quickly as possible. Casting doubt on their artistic licence flipped Rich over the edge and he told us to “Come and fetch it, I’m done.”
The customer is sometimes right
Not really the response we had in mind, a bit of reworking would suffice but when you’ve got two headstrong cocks at loggerheads it’s sometimes best to just move on.
I got the uncomfortable job of collecting the semi-finished bodywork and trying – at the 11th hour, to find a painter who would not only fit the job in but was also happy to complete somebody else’s work and be able to do it for the new deadline of Monday the 15th of April.
Disclaimer: All ended well though, both parties agreed on a price for the work carried out and nobody ended up in court/hospital.
Racepaint UK
So it’s late on Thursday afternoon and I’ve got a van full of half painted Lambretta parts as I search the East Midlands for a new sprayer. Luckily, Terry at Racepaint UK, based in Eastwood Nottinghamshire semi-reluctantly agreed to take the job over. Terry is no stranger to scooter paintwork, he’s the man behind the Cobra run of Lambrettas and plenty of other fine looking machines.
Happy Meal
I met Chris at Racepaint the following Monday. Chris rode up from Cardiff and over a quick supermarket lunch, he used a Lambretta GP line drawing and some kids felt tips to sketch the design he wanted. To be fair to Chris, he did a great job. I’m not in the least bit visionary when it comes to designing paintwork but he nailed it first time and we took the drawing back to Racepaint and left it with them.
Panel beating
Terry had got the bodywork back to where it needed to be in just a few short weeks. He’d stripped the panels back to bare metal (after the filler in one cracked) and he lined it all out. Late last Wednesday night he sent Chris a few photos of the finished side panels and they weren’t how Chris wanted them. Other than ‘The Brogue Trader’ the all-important logos were missing and this time it was Chris’ turn to throw his toys out of the pram.
Stroppy late night emails were bounced backwards and forwards between Terry, Chris and myself and by morning I was expecting to be finding a new sprayer (again).
Road trip to Italy
April 15th was the day of reckoning, Chris had planned to drive to Italy with the freshly-painted scooter in his converted Transit camper. It had to be finished for that day – yesterday. Chris runs a chain of fine gentlemen’s shoe shops under the Brogue Trader and Loake brands. He prides himself on exceptional customer service and attention to detail. He’d rearranged his diary to allow the time to drive over to Rimini, drop the scooter off, have a little touring holiday and visit Rimini for the open day. His diary takes some planning so there was no leeway.
Thankfully disaster was narrowly averted. The pressure of a busy work life, a trip hanging in the balance and a scooter that needs to be delivered by hand to Rimini in less than a weeks time had tipped Chris over the edge.
Red mist
Just a word of caution from me at this point. If you find yourself in a situation where you’re not happy with how something is going, be it a spray job, building work, some decorating, or even the way your pub lunch has been cooked – the way you go about resolving the situation is very important.
Ranting on email, text or over the phone is all well and good at making you feel better to get it off your chest but it doesn’t fix things. I find a calmer approach, allowing the job to be put right (after all you’re the paying customer) gets much better results. It means the job can be sorted, there’s no ill-feeling and everybody walks away happy.
With a spray job there’s always room for a little artistic licence and the sprayer may well have an idea of how it should look when finished, that may well be different to how the customer sees things. If you’re a sprayer then you need to listen to the important parts of the job, the customer will have certain things that need to be part of the work. In this case, it was the logos for Casa 265/The Brogue Trader/ScooterLab and Silkoline.
D-Day
I visited Racepaint on Thursday afternoon and Terry had kind of made up with Mr Mac after a morning phone call. They’d compromised over the detailing of the panels and Terry agreed to spray them again, adding the all-important logos.
It took a full day for Terry to redo the panels, by the time I got there they were complete and had just been lacquered. To be fair to Chris I think he was right to insist on this change. The panels do look much more in keeping with the scooter and after all, it’s him who has to live with it and this isn’t a cheap project by any stretch of the imagination.
Yesterday afternoon Chris picked the finished bodywork up from Racepaint, he carefully bubble wrapped it and placed it in his Transit ready for the trip to Rimini. On Thursday it will be dropped off at RLC for the Casa Performance boys to start adding the fast bits and building the scooter.
The open day is on the 27th of April, if you’re lucky enough to be going you might get a sneak peak at the scooter, although the boys in Rimini are flat out at the minute so don’t be expecting to see it finished.
Iggy
New products always in development…
This article is incredibly negatively biased and unprofessional. It isn’t factual and serves only to slander two reputable names in the business – Riding Dirty Customs (RDC) and Racepaint.
This is evident when neither Rich nor Terry were given the opportunity
to respond to the biased slant of the article.
In respect of RDC – Rich: Steve and Janine are renowned for their attention to detail; professionalism and passion.
The article is contradictory throughout and negatively biased towards both RDC and Racepaint. It is evident to the reader that SLUK is bring used to air a grievance. Is this what SLUK is reduced to? If it is, count me – and no doubt – many others out.
The article is written factually and not at all biased. Neither Rich or Terry have been slandered and I’ve spoke to both about it.
It was a disagreement between customer and client, as you’ll get in any customer based business from time to time.
Personally I’ve got no problem with either spray shop and know they both do fantastic work. I’ve got some work of my own booked on to Racepaint and a friend is taking his scooter to RDC.
This article couldn’t have been written any more fairly than it was.
I think you need to re-read the article Josephine
I generally agree with the article and don’t think its unduly critical ive just gone through the process of getting a custom scooter commissioned, my second time last being in 1991.
i would take issue with “the sprayer having an idea how it should look when finished” if this deviated from my designs that id spent long nights agonising over for artistic reasons, getting a paintjob right is probably the hardest part and most visible if not done as you expect. if for technical reasons its not possible to realise my vision i would expect to be guided by the expert so an achievable outcome is reached and i can manage my expectations accordingly .
i had to resort to legal action to recover my scooter when the relationship had broken down with the original company i chose to restore it as their communication skills and customer care left much to be desired they wouldnt answer emails no matter how polite. there is probably a different dynamic at play here as promotion of respective businesses is a factor rather than an individual doing it on a personal basis so deadlines can be red lines in the customers eyes.
choosing the correct painter for you can be a very subjective affair but i would take a piece , that reflects the essence of the vision you have ,mudguard , horncast etc then if satisfied commission the complete works. clear large scale designs/plans rather than “back of fag packet scribblings” obviously help reduce ambiguity.
if i was someone about to embark on a custom project ,articles like this provide a valuable
“warts and all “insight into some of the pitfalls and could save you more than just money in the long run building a custom project can be as much about emotional management as it is about financial management .
i spent £20K and wasted about £2k on the initial abandoned work. so its still very much buyer beware ,as there’s far too many places that promise things that they are unable to deliver giving customers unrealistic impressions of what can be achieved with respect to timescale, quality or appearance of finished project, thankfully ive found places i would be happy to use again and recommend to others.
good article Iggy,
For my opinion paintjobs and panel-beater are the most complicated parts along every restauration. If I read about extra strenghtening in the first sentence, why not adding an extra layer at the neuralgic spot at the side-panels? Half an hour of work and no problems with cracks anymore.