Preparation, preparation, preparation….

The early stage of a build like this is where the impatience really takes hold.  Stripdown is OK because it’s all action and grimy stuff, but when you get to paint, it needs care and a lot of patience.

Spray booth - Ealing style

The paint removal takes a time but gives a good feeling as the horrible pink and rust gives way to clean smooth metal. The holiday weekend provided the perfect setting – hot, clear and almost no wind, so crack on with painting and also the learning of lesson number 1.

A bike frame is actually quite big, so a single tin of spray is not enough. At least the standard 300ml cans don’t cut it. So for the next one it will be 500ml tins for each of primer, colour coat and lacquer.

Lesson number 2 – find a good way to turn the frame over during painting as these cans don’t like pointing upwards and an even coat is essential.

And of course, have somewhere to put it indoors overnight, because no matter how warm and dry the day, what goes on at night can’t be good for newly drying paint.  All good though (more or less ) and two days of constant overdosing on paint fumes brings a surprisingly good result.

Ford Azure Blue

Sun-dried bike frame

So now we have colour, and with the lacquer it looks very good.

Next step is assembly of all the mechanical bits and trying to make rusty nuts and bolts look halfway decent.

For the record, the colour chosen is Ford Azure Blue.  I went for this to get a bit of brightness and colour into the project, chose a metallic for a bit of lustre and chose a Ford colour because I figure I can get touch-up sticks or cans more readily than some other brands.  Primer is a rust resistant grey.  All the cans came from Halfords except some satin finish black Plastikote which I had in the shed from projects past and which does a job on the handlebars and stem.

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