First, usually I am against restoration, I like patina and it is only original once. But in the case of this bike, the paint is shot, it is my wife's bike and she wants it pretty, and with a serial # of 46,594, I am fairly certain there are originals out there to serve as "real" examples.

The bike "is" silver with green "flames" at most of the lugs (it is hard to see in the picture, but they are there). So yesterday and today I have been very carefully measuring and making tape templates of the flames. As expected, since this is a factory bike, the flames aren't "perfect". Their length varies as much as 10 mm and their width varies as much as 3 mm. Not bad for eye-balling it but clearly they were never measured before the paint went down.

So do I reproduce the paint exactly like it came out of the shop or do I make it "perfect" by evening out the lengths and widths?

Which then begs the larger question - The "best" restorations are always better craftsmanship than when it originally comes out of the factory. Is it appropriate to have the restoration "better" than the original?