Being a transportation device used in everyday life, scooters get bumps and scratches.  No matter how well you take care of it, there's bound to be some visual reminder of a fall or careless moment in the driveway.  The  picture at left shows a repaired and painted headset. The scooter had been used by a student for several years and had been parked outside every day in a parking lot so there was a lot of paint fading, scratches and cracks in some of the plastic. The headset actually had cracked to the point where it was 2 or 3 different pieces only held together by mounting screws to the dash board.  Otherwise, the scooter ran well so I decided to repair the damage and paint it.   A word on plastic  On the 80's and 90's scooters that I own, there's generally two general types of plastic .  One is the type that has the main body colour on top and is generally white underneath the colour.  It can be repaired easily and painted with spray cans from the local automotive supply store.  If your red scooter gets scratched and there's white plastic underneath the paint then the plastic can be repaired as shown in the main article.  This plastic is generally  "ABS" type . The other type is a  shiny colour all the way through and feels "oily" to the touch.  It's primarily used in the high wear areas  and areas that are exposed to chemical spills (engine). It's generally  more difficult to repair without specific tools (plastic welder).  This plastic is generally polyethelene on scooters. A couple of household examples of the paintable type are the plastic used on the case of your printer and tv set . The second type of plastic is the plastic used in bleach bottles, laundry detergent bottles  and roto-moulded kayaks. An excellent book on Plastic Bodywork repair is "How to repair plastic bodywork" by Kurt Lammon.  This guy is the "rocket scientist" of  knowledge about the various types of plastic and method of repair . Check your local library to see if they have a copy. The book is still available here but they also have a very good online tutorial about identifying and repairing plastic bodywork.    If you live in an apartment with no workspace and want to just repair a simple crack or loose piece of bodywork it may be worth trying out ( I haven't as yet). The website for plastifix products that deals with the most common repair of scooter bodywork  is here. If your scooter does have body damage, find out if a replacement panel is available and at what cost.  After reading the instructions on body panel repair you  may consider the price of a replacement body panel may be better  than the labour and material cost if you did the repair yourself.  The basic steps are: 1. Clean the body panels 2. Re-attach any separated parts   3. Sand the inside of the panel where cloth and resin are to be applied  4. Cut and lay out cloth to desired area 5. Mix and apply resin 6. sand exterior smooth, fill any voids with body putty 7. Apply primer coat 8. Apply finish coat The top 3 pics are of my Elite 150 headset in the process of being repaired .   The headset was in 3 or 4 different parts at the time I removed it.  If you are in an accident and a piece falls off, save it as it can be easily re-attached. You can re-fit the pieces much like a jigsaw puzzle and they'll still be the original shape.Before you start working on the panel, wash it in warm water and dish soap cleaning all road dirt etc off of it and then rinsing in clean water.    I'll  arrange the pieces in the original shape by taping them on the front "visible" side.  Repairs using fiberglass cloth and polyester resin will be used to repair the side you don't see.   I've also used "crazy glue"  to re-attach pieces temporarily. Don't be too concerned if there are some small ridges where the attached piece sticks up. One advantage of the ABS type plastic is that it can be sanded. After the cloth and resin are applied and set, you'll smooth the visible side by sanding which will get rid of the ridges.   If there are plastic parts missing ot holes in the bodywork where you're planning on applying the fiberglass, you can apply Electricians tape, plastic food wrap or anything else that willl stop the resin from getting on to the "good side" of the panel. The resin can be sanded but it'll be easier if you minimze the amount on the "good side" of the panel. In the 3rd picture you can see two mounting tabs that sometimes break. The top mounting tab in the 3rd pic was broken so I crazy glued it in place and you can see where I re-inforced it with fiberglass cloth and resin. Fiberglass repair kit for $16 at Auto centers, outdoor shops, boating shops Before applying the cloth and resin sand the plastic where it's to be applied.  120 grit sandpaper is my choice as it has to be a rough texture for th best bond. Cut and apply the cloth . Household scissors work.  If it's a bit too big it can be trimmed after it's set. For trimming after the mix has set, I use an exacto knife to get a rough shape and then sandpaper afterwards.  You'll need  to mix the resin according to instructions.   It's necessary to have the right conditions for the resin to harden up so read the instructions a couple of times. You'll want a well ventilated area (carport, garage, backyard, balcony) as you don't want to inhale the fumes. I use a pair of kitchen gloves and a metal soup can to mix it. The resin will "heat up" when it cures so a plastic container could melt.   In the top two pics is an early BWS front panel. There are pieces missing from the panel and the cracks are quite long so the fiberglass repair does two things. It'll stop the crack from lengthening and stiffen the panel to guard against future damage. The cloth was applied in a much larger area than the crack itself  to give added strength. In the bottom two pics is a BWS headset with a piece missing. The pic of the inside shows the V shaped part that was missing. This repair takes a few layers of fiberglass cloth. One or two are cut to fit inside the spot where the missing piece was .  Another layer (or two) goes on top and extends to the headset. In the bottom pic you can see where I've attached a piece of wax paper to conform to the shape of the headset. It acts as a backing for the cloth and resin applied from the inside.  Once it's set, the outside will probably be rough and need to  have body filler applied.  Body filler is simply resin with some sort of powder mixed in.  The type of powder determines how easy it is to sand. On the scooter at left , the bottom louvered part and bumper were totally repaired using fiberglass tape method shown above.Cracks, scratches and loose mounting positions had pretty well made it ugly and loose.  It "rattled" and was drooping on the scooter when I bought it. The paint was chosen from an automotive supply store and is a laquer based "touch up" spray can. It took maybe 2 or 3 12 oz/342 g spray cans to do the front part. I topped it of with a coat of "clear coat"  to make it shine. Before it was just another old scruffy scooter but, after the paint job, there were always people asking what kind of scooter it was as they'd assumed it was brand new model off the showroom floor. I'd taken off all the decals and flashy trim that's common on scooters.  There were so many colour variations and details on the stock scooter that broke up the body lines.  While I'd originally thought the 150's were ugly, I saw the beauty in the design after it was painted.