Quick up-date on the frame conservation work, I popped in to see my chum Mark at
http://www.powderandpaint.info/ in East Cottingham near York, he’s been intrusted with the prep work on the Massed Start, first job was a chemical dip to remove all paint and oils, then on to very, very careful fine glass blasting. Mark has had years of experience very delicately dealing with people’s pride & joys and really does work carefully and slowly, taking time to check progress.
Today I inspected the result and although heavily pitted in places, the frame is ok to move on to the next process, namely zinc primer powder coating. Now although this has some similarities with regular powder coating, (in how it is applied), it’s not quite the same….think of it as a modern version of “Bonderising” or “Special rust proofing” the layer will stabilise the frame and should protect mild steel outdoors for 20 years left as it is. With a couple of layers of paint and clear coat & tucked up nice and warm and dry in my workshop, the frame should be rust free for many more years.
This will make a good base to treat the pitting with a polyester filler and then cold painted with 2-Pac acrylic. This by the way is one advantage over oven baked enamel.. the car body filler doesn’t like the baking process and always swells and or shrinks leaving traces of the pitting visible, particularly in fine pearls and flamboyant paints.
You can also use regular spray can acrylics such as the modern Humbrol model making mini cans or the cans that Halfords sell. But you must top coat these with an acrylic clear coat as theses paints aren’t very tough. 2-pac acrylics on the other hand are nearly as tough as enamel.
PS, word of warning….dont use cellulose over zinc powder coat.. it doesn’t like it one bit. :shock:
Sorry no photographs, I’ll post some when I get the frame back after the zinc coat.
