Yamaha AS1

HOORAY! ALL THE POWDER coating is back and it looks glorious in the late autumn sunlight. Well, it would do if it wasn’t under the industrial cling wrap!

Once unwrapped, to say I’m impressed is an understatement, as Mark Forder at Perfect Coatings in Bedfordshire has excelled himself. Everything looks so much better than I’d dared hope for and, by opting for the zinc-rich primercum-basecoat, most of the frame’s imperfections have been pretty much eradicated. Now I can crack on.

First up is the swing arm and its metalastic bushes. As you might hope, there is no powder coating in the tubular registers for the bushes, but I still give the internal faces another a quick whizz with an abrasive cylinder