The key to a good finish is preparation, preparation oh and preparation and that is labour intensive, it’s also the reason a pro job costs so much money, you are paying for the materials along with someone’s skill and knowledge but also a large amount of their time. You can cheat certain steps but you always have to bear in mind that it will reflect in the final finish and that trade off is your choice.
The basic tools needed here are:
Wet and dry paper of varying grades but 180 grit is pretty much de rigueur for most things until you get to polishing much later on.
Warm soapy water, a little bit of washing up liquid helps to de grease as you go.
Fibre rubbing pads
Your hands to feel how smooth your surface is.
And of course lashings of elbow grease.
You can add, wet and dry blocks, sanding blocks for paper, Stanley blades, paint stripper, filler, rust treating chemicals and and all manner of other things to make the job easier but the basic principles of good preparation leading to a good finish never change.
Now I could have cheated with this one by rubbing it down and just applied primer and a new colour over the top of what ended up being left of the original finish, because provided you don’t have any real rust or corrosion to deal with the new finish will key to rubbed down paint better than it will to bare metal, that and the original paint could well be already filling small blemishes quite nicely so could save you some work, but all those layers of paint will make the finish look very fat and anything that is underneath could well eventually show through.
As this one already had two colours on it, the only dent I could find I has happy to deal with and the only corrosion was on the chromed rear stay I decided taking all the old paint off and starting again was by far the best course of action.
There are several ways of removing old paint, you can simply rub it down with wet and dry paper until you’ve removed all the paint (time consuming but a good way to get a very nice starting point), get it shot blasted (not easy to do at home) or even using a Stanley knife blade to carefully peel the old finish off, either on it’s own or in conjunction with other methods to get into the hard to reach places. But for this one I decided to use a proprietary paint remover.
Because of health and safety concerns (we’re all obviously pig poo thick and will probably drink it) modern paint removers are just not very good at removing older finishes but can work very well with more modern finishes, so as this was reasonably modern I thought I’d give it a go.
I favour B&Q’s own, its cheap and the most effective I’ve found. The simplest way to apply it is to suspend the frame from a stand or the ceiling (depending on where you are working) and make sure you put some newspaper down underneath it, pour some paint stripper into a plastic pot (I use an old margarine tub) and then dab it onto the frame using a 25mm (1”) paint brush. You need to get a reasonably thick (a couple of mm at least) covering all over it and make sure you work it into all the nooks and cranny’s
Try not to get any on your skin, the B&Q stripper does wash off and washes out of the brush well but others may well be more corrosive to skin so safety first kids. I’ve got asbestos skin it seems from years of soldering and it doesn’t seem to affect me but don’t take me as an example I was always the child your Mum warned you about.
The B&Q paint stripper suggests you put a 2nd coat on after around 20 minutes and this does seem to help the process.
Picture of a nice bowl of soapy water with some wet and dry soaking in it, the paint stripper in a pot, the stripper covered frame and the reason for the newspaper below it.
On to the next stage, getting proper messy.
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_________________ COMPLETED BIKES Abeni Europa, Meral, Holdsworth Autograph 1976, Geoffrey Butler, 1950's Sid Mottram, Raleigh Record, Holdsworth Elan, a pair of Raleigh Records, Look KG96, Ladies Falcon Westminster, Ribble summit or other possibly, that became the paint your wagon special, Another I have no clue what it is, Claud Butler Bucaneer 1956, Centresport / Woodrup, BSA Tour de France. IN THE QUEUE TO BE COMPLETED Falcon Pro & Falcon Majorca, Francesco Moser, Jan Jansen, Ken James, Ken James Too, Harry Quinn, Mercian, Raleigh Record Ace, Raleigh Sirroco 1984, Raleigh Rapide, Falcon Westminster, Falcon Black Diamond, Raleigh Record Sprint, Navarro, Carlton Corsair, Carlton Criterium, Sun Wasp, Claud Butler Velo Capital 1963, Claud Butler Majestic, Lucasa, Holdsworth Possibly, Another Ribble Possibly, NO LONGER IN THE BIKE SHED Raleigh Sirocco 1978, Falcon San Remo, Holdsworth Competition, Lejeune Possibly, Sun Super Snipe,
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