£1 Voodoo - Voodoo Hoodoo project

Well now; a LONG (hi)story short; I always wanted a Voodoo Hoodoo; almost a bit of a unicorn project, if you will..

Well, a few months ago a frame came up on Ebay (some of you may have seen it), 1999 Hoodoo - theoretically less desirable, being a Taiwan 'Black Magic' cromo frame - but with a difference or two..

The frame was selling for 99p just a couple of hours before the auction end, and I knew I'd be kicking myself for eternity if I didn't put in a bid, depite its 'problems', so stuck in a cheeky fiver and won it, for the princely sum of £1.04p..! :shock:
Okay, so postage added another £25 or so thanks to our lovely Royal Mail, but still it was mine! A real Steel Voodoo Hoodoo winging its way to me!
The seller was perfectly willing to give it away, as long as it was going to be used.

Now; the description.. It was advertised as an 18.5" 1999 Hoodoo, in metallic yellow but well used and with repairs. The first was a modification to add a disc mount; no problem for me as I fully intended to use it with discs if at all possible, and very few original steel Hoodoos available with disc mounts!
Second problem was a cracked seattube which had been repaired around 10 years ago with a welded wrap around stiffener - so I took a punt but hey, what are the odds of finding another in the same condition with a disc mount!?

Just a few days later and it was mine-all-mine! :xmas-cool:
The original auction was listed here: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Voodoo-Hoodoo ... true&rt=nc
Apologies to anyone if it was your sale, however.. the paint was a bit of a mess; when the disc mount was added and the wrap around welded in, it was repainted with a dull ochre paint; very different to the original and a sticker had been put over the repaired seat tube.. On removing the stickers, all looked good however, and the recreation project ready to begin!

Pictures!

Pics to follow shortly!
Just waiting on some minor parts to finish off the wholly tasteless build and get the bike out & ridden!

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Finally adding the pics to the Voodoo project!

This is how it was originally as bought, with original paintjob plus repairs & patchy paint - which obviously had to go:

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Paint stripping I decided to do myself by hand, instead of sending to a paint shop as firstly there aren't any near me, and I was trying to do this on somewhat of a budget(!) and also I wasn't sure about the seat tube crack & repair and how well it had been done under the repainted area.

Cracking on then, I tried Nitromors (rubbish as we all know by now) and so gave B&Q paint stripper a shot:
http://www.diy.com/departments/bq-paint ... 351_BQ.prd

Awesome stuff, did the trick very well, lifting the original paint so it could be scraped off in around 48 hours. The paint was removed in sections, bit by bit, over the course of a couple of months. Firstly with a craft knife (Very thin blade, peels the paint off in strips) which worked brilliantly.
Obviously with being a steel frame it's a softer metal than Alu so any small marks and scratches can get 'buffed out' with increasingly fine sanding, wet/dry paper and finally brillo pad.




Pics taken while obviously fitting intended and other random parts to mock up sizing & look

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The main area of concern - fix to a previously cracked seat-tube. Once the paint was off all looking good, no apparent spread to the crack and no unusual sounds from a basic tap & flex test, so it would get built & ride if/until it breaks..



And the disc mount added by the previous owner. Very nicely welded and brazed in, and broke out the Dremel to clean up the dropouts etc..



Not sure, having not seen another similar-age Voodoo recently if all the headbadges were quite so crappily attached, but the glue spreading out around the badge as it was originally received looked terrible and would obviously present a problem in repainting, so judicious use of the Dremal and craft knife and the glue was chipped back to the badge itself and the paint under the glue gradually removed. Took forever to do, but worth it in the end!

any progress?

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Yup.. More from the paintwork as it gradually came off and was replaced by lovely bare steel..







(interesting to note the tiny dinks & dents that show up when the paint's off!)

And so.. final stages of paint removal, ready for finishing and just deciding whether/how to repaint and what with...

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Just prior to final paint removal & repolishing of the whole frame..

Nice.

Colour?