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
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!
