Orange patriot LT complete rebuild

Not sure if anyone will be interested or not in thi, bjt just incase you were I thought I would post the build as a blog here.

So it all started just before christmas, I had a few beers and kn my druken haste agreed to buy an Orange patriot. The bike was in a right state, with most parts not really suiting what the frame was designed fir. So I stripped the frzme of all thd parts and senttheframe off to be blasted and powder coated. I decided I wanted to go white this time with some gold touches to add a bit of bling. I had some replica graphics made up in black and gold got to be honest I am happy with the look so far. The finish from the powder coaters is not great but I am being perhaps a little picky.

What do you think?

So following on from the powder coating and re-decalling I replaced the pivot bearings and mechanically polished the bearing dust caps and mech hanger. I also fitted a gold hope seat clamp to match and refitted the rear shock and nukeproof coil following a light service. I have today bought a gold superstar headset, to be fitted and I am currently worki g on tidying up a set of juniot T forks I have bought for the build.

So I could do with some of your thoughts around what to do with the forks. They are currently all black; stanchions, crowns, legs etc. However the frame is white with gold decaks and black highlights. Should I leave the legs as is I.e. black or should I paint the legs white to match the bike ? The photos below show hot the currently look.

Maybe Gold decals on the forks would bring them in to the theme of the frame? Would be a shame to have to remove the original paint.

That was similar though to mine, but still not sure. The original paint is far from perfect mind.

I'd leave them black personally and do something with the decals.

Looks good in the pics. Where did you get it powder coated?

It's the second bike I have coated by 3d finishers in Coventry. They do a fantastic job at a rock bottom price. They also clear coat lacquer the frame! This job wasn't as good as the job they did for me on my Msisle but even so it's still pretty damn good!

I thought it was. Can I ask why you're not totally happy with it?

I was thinking of taking my SX there, but want to make sure that I get a good job.

Well there are some finger prints under the lacquer, which are barely noticeable but they pointed them out to me. They offered to redo it but to be honest I needed to get on with putting the bike together. I must say it want there fault they had a visitor that touched te bike whilst on the rack and as I say they offered to redo the whole bike! The job they did on my Msisle was frankly as good as the original manufacturer finish!

Looking good! can't beat the combination of white/black/gold

For the forks... white paint with decals to match those on the frame would be my ideal, but that's going to be a lot of work... almost as good (and a hell of a lot simpler) would be to stay with the black paint and get gold/white decals made up to match those on the frame.