Custom Bob Jackson Frame - Ev Chuffed

Ev's new Bob Jackson frame arrived today, it's a beauty! Here is the proud father looking just a little bit excited, haha :-p

Sun Worksop Re-Paint

The last paint job I did on my frame was bloody awful so I decided to give some enamel paint a go and to at least try and strip the frame properly first. I busted out some Nitromors and it beat the living daylights out of the graffiti paint, it came right off. Unfortunately as soon as the Nitromors had done its job it started pissing down so I had to paint ANOTHER frame in a dark, small, filthy shed in damp weather. I primed and painted it blah blah blah, then made a truly pathetic attempt at baking the enamel dry using a rotating heater, they paint still wasn't fully hard this morning and I ended up leaving some fingerprints on the top tube but they may come in handy one day! I can't be bothered to write any more now, if it's boring to write then it must be really boring to read.
Primer, enamel gloss, Nitromors, Bianchi cap, Silver Jews t-shirt, boosh!


Ready for action

As dangerous as they make out?

Within seconds!

Within minutes...

...fizzle, fizzle

After some chiselling
Mostly free of paint


Primed in the shed

All the bits wait patiently

A pathetic attempt at baking the enamel dry

Looked nice in the morning

Ready for work
Outside Exist in town

My New (Old) Frame is back on the streets

So I sold my white frame the other day and, while I wait for my new Bob Jackson to arrive, I've set up my o.g Raleigh 'Kellogs Pro Tour' frame. This frame was part of my first ever build and I forgot how much I dig it.

Sun Worksop Frame Fixed Up

I picked up this snazzy 19.5" Sun Worksop frame at Re-Cycle, it had seen better days, in fact it looked like it had been stored outdoors for the last 20 years but that didn't put me off. It proved to be quite a project, the cottered cranks were well and truly stuck so I 'employed' the services of my good friend Julian who is a real man with tools.
The crank arms had to be angle-ground off the spindle, then one of them welded to a bottom bracket cup in order to unscrew it, he then went to work on the pump arms, cable guides and the hideous light thing on the right fork. Next he beat the living daylights out of the worst of the rust using a wirey attachment for the grinder. Last but not least he got the head badge off for me.
I then did a terrible job of sanding the remaining parts of the frame before masking it up and spraying it Montana 94 Valley Green (9r-6018) which is a super thick, sweet smelling graffiti paint available at Exist. The colour is awesome but its a bit knobbly bobbly cause I really really hate sanding, it's gotta be the worst thing in the world!

I'm not afraid of a bit of rust!

Angle grinding the cottered cranks off

Off comes all the "faff"

Welding a crank arm to the seized bottom bracket cup

A gentle whack and...

...out it comes

Removing the snazzy head badge

Sweeeeet!

Sanding the worst of the rust off

Before

After

Ready for graffiti-ing

"Heroes in a half shell, Turtle Power!"

Lookin' fresh with the classic 'Kids of Clase' graffiti, booyaa!

Sun Worksop Frame

I've been on the lookout for a 19" frame for a while cause my 21" is a tad too long for me. I've been scouring the paper and every week I've been calling into Re-Cycle in the hope that something will have been donated but no cigar. Until today. Turns out there has been a 19" frame there the whole time underneath a bunch of other frames, it's a Sun Worksop which as far as I can find was gobbled up by Raleigh, from Wikipedia: "In 1960, Tube Investments acquired Raleigh and merged the British Cycle Corporation with Raleigh to form TI-Raleigh which had 75% of the UK market. TI-Raleigh then acquired Carlton Cycles in Worksop, England, at the time one of the largest semi-custom lightweight makers in the U.K. Raleigh brands acquired and marketed were Phillips Cycles and Hercules Cycle, Rudge, BSA, and Sun, however these were cheaper machines in The TI-Raleigh range. Production was switched to Nottingham, however the Sun branded bicycles were made in the Carlton factory at Worksop, England."
It's nothing special but at least it will fit me and it's certainly better than the Apollo Challenger frame I'm using currently. Check it out:
It's pretty rusty but nothing a bit of sandpaper won't fix

Pretty cool headbadge

"Sweet lugs"

Pretty weird?

Paint Your Frame!

When I painted my bike the first time I used regular car paint, the colour was ok but pretty dull and it certainly didn't "pop" so when my girlfriend asked me to build her a bike (singlespeed) for her birthday I wanted to try something different. The obvious choice was graffiti paint, it did an amazing job, I used a matte pink by Montana from the Exist shop in Swansea and the colour just blew me away, the paint is so thick that the frame was practically done with just one coat! I stuck a few more on top and didn't bother to lacquer it cause the finish is immense. I have resprayed mine matte black using Molotow which also did a great job. Now that spring is here why not give your frame a new lease of life with a quick paint job? Check out existclothing.com or pop into the shop to get your hands on some killer colours.

Mr. Hankey, The Fixie Bike

Sooooooo, Ric has painted his frame brown to match his seat and bars. His bike is now completely brown. His bike looks like Mr Hankey The Christmas Poo.