Jude had a simple request...restore his beloved Trek 8000, his first real mountain bike, into a trail machine that looks as good as it rips (oh, and post lots of photos). Clad in a fading yellow with the classic big Trek logo, it was stripped, media blasted, and received four sanded layers of primer to get us to the business of the day.
The colors were to be vanilla shake and olive green, so I laid down the vanilla over the entire frame and started laying down some masks...
Some long darts ending with squared ends to match the right angles of the large cable stops and some Trek details go down, such tiny little letters take a lot of patience...
After all the masks are down, I spray another layer of vanilla to seal the edges of the masks, to prevent the next color from leaking under...
With the vanilla happy, it's time to mix up the olive green and get it in the cup...
Once I was happy with the color, on the frame it goes. I sprayed a couple of thin layers to keep the build on the edges of the masking down...
Before she sets too tight, the masking comes off. If you were to wait til it is fully set, the edges will tend to leave a curled/frayed ridge that requires more work to bring down...
One of the major roadblocks with this resto is the absolute lack of any assistance from the big T...not only do they not have any period correct decals, they could not even bother to return phone calls for weeks. So, faced with a deadline, I had to redraw all the masks on the computer based off of blurry Internet pics...ughh, time consuming. Although the Trek logo is not super sexy, it is unmistakable :) Here is the down tube decals laid down with the center aspect removed, ready for airbrushing...
Once the white is down, the masking must be replaced EXACTLY onto the tubes. This is such a critical step, made more difficult as the thin mask tends to stretch, move, get air bubbles, etc as you manipulate it...
Once the inners are back in place, the razor blade comes out and carefully we remove the detailed pinstriping around each letter...
Paint it black...
Peel it off and pray you did good ;)
Looks good so far...
A final touch up with a razor blade, wipe down with a tack cloth, and hit it with 3 layers of clear...
A nice Jen Greene head badge would finish it off right, hope Jude gets another 20 years of fun.
cheers,
rody
3 comments:
I'm speechless. It looks simply amazing. I can't wait to put it back together and ride it!
Eeessshhh.. makes me want a Trek.
Dicky...you could pick up a 90's Trek AL frame cheapers on the net. Send it to me and I'll spray it up an obnoxious hot pink for next years race season. Better ride fast though, don't want any of those southern billy's thinking you got purty legs while you straddle that pink thing ;)
rody
Post a Comment