Acerbis Tank - adding decals

[DaveT7]

I've just bought a 2021 T7 with the 22l Acerbis tank installed. The bike was originally white/red but with the original tank replaced it is looking more black than anything.

 

I'd like to put this right by reintroducing a bit of colour using decals. Taking a close look at the Acerbis plastic, it looks slightly textured. This makes me wonder if I'll have trouble getting vinyl decals to adhere to it. 

 

Has anyone done this before? Is there anything I need to know before I have a go? Thanks!

[Ray Ride4life]

It will stick but you need perforated vynil that can breath.

[DaveT7]

Great. Thanks for that, I'll mention it to the signwriters. 

 

[BikeBrother]

There are white and red colored acerbis tanks available. Maybe sell this one and get another color.

I put stickers in the past on plastic safaritank, but all came loose, due to breathing fuel.

[Ray Ride4life]

2 hours ago, BikeBrother said:

There are white and red colored acerbis tanks available. Maybe sell this one and get another color.

I put stickers in the past on plastic safaritank, but all came loose, due to breathing fuel.

That's why they invented perforated vynil.

[łorsoł]

Hello, hello.

 

I'm thinking about putting some stickers as well on a bike, translucent acerbis installed in my case.

Trying to find any decal sets for a bike with Acerbis tank, made from this magic perforated vynil, but no luck so far... help   ?

 

Brgds!

[e010584]

I did my own vinyl wrap to match stock appearance and liked the look, but they only lasted 6 mos.  Perforated vinyl would help but suspect you'll still run into issues.  I did sand down the texture to help the adhesion.

[DaveT7]

4 hours ago, e010584 said:

I did my own vinyl wrap to match stock appearance and liked the look, but they only lasted 6 mos.  Perforated vinyl would help but suspect you'll still run into issues.  I did sand down the texture to help the adhesion.

That's useful to know. Have you got any photos you could share? Did you sand the whole tank? Thanks.

 

[Dougie]

https://bagsterworld.de/pi.php/en/Tank-covers/YAMAHA/tenere-700-2019.html?anzeigen_ab=30&kat_aktiv=316&kat_last=316

I’m in the same boat, and I did look at tank covers (baglux) but they are quite expensive( no worries if it’s good and works) but they do it for the stock tank. You can however, pay a little extra for changes in colour theme and mods so you could ask them to fit a bespoke one to an acerbis.
 

 

Edited August 15, 2023 by Dougie

[Hibobb]

@Dougie "Bespoke", that's a new one for me.

I must add it to my linguistic repertoire to wow my m/c buddies over here...

[Dougie]

9 minutes ago, Hibobb said:

@Dougie "Bespoke", that's a new one for me.

I must add it to my linguistic repertoire to wow my m/c buddies over here...

I know what it means but have never been able to pay for it.
still can’t believe that there’s not a paint that will work on the tanks. 

Edited August 15, 2023 by Dougie

[e010584]

On 8/15/2023 at 11:51 AM, DaveT7 said:

That's useful to know. Have you got any photos you could share? Did you sand the whole tank? Thanks.

 

DaveT7, I posted my original wrap and updates under the Acerbis Tank Upgrade with the "finished" product here: 

I later simplified the scheme by trimming away the wrap to only cover the one surface on each side without going over the sharp edges as I hadn't sanded any of the other surfaces.  My plan was to make my own digital template for a cricut machine to simplify making a new set of decals every 6 mos or so, but haven't got that far.  A perforated vinyl would also help but not as easy to find, let alone the fact that making letter stencils out of perforated vinyl and lining up perforations would be pretty much impossible.  I guess it would be possible to use the cricut to perforate a final template.