Jared's Yo and some Hippo flavored luving...

I spent the day in the paint booth trying to finish up some lingering projects before I dive into Chad's Ti road bike with earnest.

Jared's frame was up first.  With the seat tube replaced, I started laying down the colors on Jared''s Yo...he choose to go with a classic Aqua Fade finish. 

The heat and humidity was cooking today and made it difficult to move the solvents out of the paint, leaving small isles of dampness on the surface.  I had to flash off each layer in the bake box where the heat is dry and more like Arizona than Ohio :)  Once I got the pieces rotating through, I was able to get a groove on.

After a matte layer of clear, I layed down the decals...

I'm gonna let her sit overnight and spray the final clear coats in the morning when it's cooler.

While I had the Aqua colors in the gun, I moved on to another project.  Emmy had been on me because she is the only member of the family that does not have a Groovy frame.  Despite the fact that she's had a killer pink and purple Grove X and a classic EWR to tool around on, she desired something more her style and from Dad's shop.  Fortunately for me, she sized up perfectly for Carey's 650b race frame that I had built up for him to use until I could find time to build  and paint what we really wanted to make.  With his new frame in hand, I could dedicate the slightly used one for Em...with a little new paint of course. 

CAUTION...funky styling forthcoming

We started by drawing up some Hippos with 60's era flowers adorning thier cuddly bodies...

After running them through the plotter, weeding out the masking vinyl, and placing the transfer sheet, it's time to start placing them on the frame and fork...

You think of Hippos as being a big animal, but boy, it sure takes a lot of those buggers to get good coverage on round tubes :)

Once all the masking is down, I sprayed the blue color again to seal the edges and protect from the next color from bleeding through and making a lot of work on an already hot muggy day...

Now that the mask is ready to go, it's on to the next color,Yummy Lime sherbet.  After a quick flash, let's take off some of the negative masks and see what we've got...

A bit of clear and a flash off, then the decals go on...

A little personalization always makes it special...

Four coats of clear, an hour of rotating the frame and fork to prevent sags, and into the bake box it goes for a slow dry warm up...

Not bad productivity today for my first full day of vacation.  We had hoped to ride GOBA this year, but I'm just too far behind to spend a week away, so there should be plenty getting done in the near future.

cheers,

rody