One of my favorite old Kawasaki's to gawk at is the A1 Samurai.
Most notably, I love the classic candy apple red with that great winged tank emblem. So when I was resurrecting my bike post-accident last year, and ended up with red bodywork, I was pretty excited when I found genuine Kawasaki tank badges in the samurai style.
However, I have had a very hard time getting them to stick down firmly. I even tried replacing the adhesive with the 3M stuff that everyone recommends using for car badges and such, and they just don't stay down flush. The badges are too stiff, and my tank is too curved. Ultimately I'd really like to repaint all of my bodywork anyway, and I was thinking that the Samurai style emblem painted on under some clear coat might look really nice. Another raised emblem would also look good, if I can figure out a way to get it to curve to the tank.
Either way, I figured I need to come up with a detailed tracing of the emblem to make it work. So I started by sticking my badges in a flatbed scanner.
I've traced most of it, and here's what I've got so far. Two different versions one with the lines inside the watermark, and one without, and a 3D preview.
Obviously there's a major difference, that being mine has only the Kawasaki river mark logo, and no flag. The flag would prevent a significant challenge in reproducing this in a flat stencil paint-only situation. However I'm still thinking about trying to trace the flag.
So I'm looking for input. How does it look so far? Does it look good with just the watermark, or should I try to reproduce the flag? The "Kawasaki" text is larger than the original, is it well-proportioned to the rest of the design?
And last comment or question, is if there is anybody else here interested in having stencils, or some other form of this created for their project? I wouldn't be opposed to sharing the files, or making more than just what I need for my bike, and I'm not trying to make money on this. But I don't want to lose money either, so you know how that goes.