Paint, Paint, painty paint...

Hey folks, nice of y'all to drop in yet again. :)

Spent the last two days working on paint. I promised you pics of Bobs Gulf Stream bike, so here it is...

If you remember, Bob's Yo had some unsightly rack braze ons that had been crudely welded on, resulting in three crateresque holes in the seat stays. Those were repaired and smoothed all in metal, so they should be bomber again and pretty to look at, bringing back the smooth lines of before. The frame was in otherwise good nick; the seat tube, historically an issue on these frames, was clean and sound. There were a few chain suck marks present, but they were inconsequential structurally so it was not worth subjecting the material to the heat to smooth them over.

I started off the paint by laying down a two coat sanded primer to protect the frame for the future. Then is was three layers of powder blue to insure a bomber base for the masking. With the differing humidity levels we experienced the last couple of days, proper reducers and flash times would play a big part in the masking that was necessary, so I wanted to insure I had a solid base for all the tape I'd be laying down.

With the powder blue down, it was time to start masking for the orange...

I went through about three false starts with the design. Originally, Bob had desired an orange fork, darts on the top and down tube, and a panel on the seat tube. Looking forward at how the decals would fall was a primary concern...with the darts the decals were too large to fit inside the orange area but would also cover much of the tapering transition. I just didn't feel it was flowing. So I went back to the pics of the cars and came up with a new plan, solid parallel panels that matched the stripe on the cars hood and roof. This would allow me to split the decals on the half and allow the eye to follow the flow of the masking...yeah, that'll work!

Here we are committed to the design and laying down the orange...

After the orange, it's time to separate the orange and blue from touching with some pinstripes. I followed the flow of the original mask and airbrushed in some black after masking...

Black is on in all the critical areas...

After all the color is layed down, it's time to remove all the masking. It's kinda like Christmas, anticipating the final look but you want to open this present VERY carefully so as not to lift any of the fragile paint. Once the paper and tape is all off, here's what we have...

I wanted a balanced look to the frame and fork, so I left the fork blue and incorporated one of the white circles for the numbering like is seen on the lateral edges of the car's paint. I hand airbrushed in a little something special for Bob as I did not have a number to run with...his initials, a personal touch to make it his own. ;)

After all the color work is done, I sprayed a layer of clear and baked it all up. A little sanding, wiping, and blowing off and then onto the next step.

Decals and the second layer of clear applied... you can now see how the parallel lines of the pin striping allow the eye to keep flowing down the tube.

And fast forwarding to the third layer of clear, the final product...

I hope Bob is as stoked with the results as I am. I had fun doing it, it was worth the wait.

As I was working on the Yo, I was alternating booth time with the Grove Ti repaint...here are some shots of it's completed work.

The depth of color came out very nice, showing a deep metallic red over the black base. This will be built up with a mix of anno red and silver components. Should be yummy.

Clean transitions on the dropouts, even where repaired :)

A parting shot...

The last nugget to share today is the arrival of the Gates belt drive components. I'm going to build a 650b single speed along side Erics bike to use these parts on and see how they perform. This will likely be a demo for the fleet or if it comes out really nice, I'll keep it for the upcoming shows and then sell it off.

Anyhoo, the parts are very well constructed, clean and light weight. The one consideration in the frame design is the installation of the belt...you either have to build an elevated chainstay frame or design the frame with a break in it at some point to pass the belt through. I've chosen to incorporate a .75" coupler into the chainstay to facilitate this. Although a split dropout is available, I do not believe it has the same engineered strength and simplicity as the coupler for consumer use.

I'm off to review and finalize Eric's frame, set the fixture, give him a hi-dee-ho, and get back to building. Stay tuned, Eric's frame is going to be one to watch.

cheers,

rody