The future’s bright

Jack Edwards is a young scooterist who has a passion for the scene. Together with his father, Doug, he shared with us the highs and lows of his first scooter build and his first ride to a scooter rally…

A father and son team under the spotlight as they buy, repair and customise a scooter.

The acquisition

Doug spotted Jack’s Vespa 50 Special on eBay. It had a ‘buy it now’ price of £600. Doug pressed the button, paid the money and the following weekend they set off to Maidstone and collected the scooter.

With the scooter now safely back at home, it sat covered up in their shed, but with Jack’s 16th birthday fast approaching, work needed to start. Doug decided the best way for his son to learn was for Jack to get stuck in, get involved and wherever possible actually do it. Reflecting back on the whole build process, Doug said: “I assumed the role of foreman and did very little!” Doug and Jack started stripping the scooter and during the process they discovered some problems. The frame had holes drilled in it, there was rot to the running boards, there were various dents to the bodywork, headset, front mudguard, and engine cover side panel. Doug said: “To get the scooter to be perfect we decided that some parts might have to be replaced. We weren’t going to take any short cuts and if it wasn’t right it would be redone and started again.”

Planning and preparation

To support the scooter build, Doug and Jack built their own work/spray shop in their back garden, which also gave them time to start thinking about what sort of paint job the scooter was going to have. To Doug the answer was easy, being an

Eighties scooterist; it had to be metal flake and candy, but what colour? They discussed their options and because the scooter originally came out of the factory painted orange Jack decided that the scooter would stay orange. Tango orange was available and the paint was ordered. The final product would be silver metal flake covered in orange candy and with their build premises organised the preparation work began.

Paintwork and sanding

Optimistically Doug booked four days off work to supervise Jack with the paintwork process. However; the whole process took about six weeks, which gave Jack the opportunity to learn the craft in detail. After the last clear coat had been applied it was time to ‘flat back’ with wet and dry, and Jack was designated with the responsibility of ‘senior sander.’ Six hundred grit wet and dry was used and then the whole thing was polished with cutting compound. Jack said, “There was so much sanding involved. I’ve vowed never to sand anything ever again!”

Light of day

On the day when the paintwork was completed darkness had drawn in, which meant that during the latter stages of the process Doug and Jack had been working under poor lighting conditions. Doug said: “In all honesty it didn’t look good and we were hoping it was just the light; so we left it, in the hope that it would look better in the morning.”

The following day, and under better lighting conditions Doug and Jack returned nervously to examine their work. Doug said: “It was good, but it wasn’t to the standard we were looking for.” After some deliberation Doug and Jack decided to wet and dry the scooter again, but with finer grade paper. Doug said: “Can you imagine Jack’s delight at the prospect of yet again rubbing it down? Only this time it was worse, I had sprayed the whole thing with a wax polish! In hindsight, cleaning it first with panel wipe would probably have worked.” The scooter was sanded again and soon it was time to start polishing. Bingo! Almost instantly it was there and the shine was coming back; what a relief! The rest of the scooter was polished and it was looking good.

Doug said: “The problem now was, how could we put anything old or rusty back on it?” Doug and Jack had to be honest with themselves. The mudguard wasn’t up to scratch and neither was the engine cover side panel. These parts were replaced and within 10 days of the scooter being painted it was reassembled.

First outings

The scooter was given its first outing and test-ride and everything proved okay. The next part of the plan was for Doug and