Polished Vitus 992 - Good old oven cleaner

[agentorange]

Been thinking about doing this for a while. Rumor had it that you could remove the coloured anodizing from alloy tubes with oven cleaner and I always wondered what the glorious Vitus 992 frame would look like in a sort of all-alloy livery.

A couple of blasts on the oven cleaner gel plus a lot of wet and dry sand 500 then 800 followed by a crazed session on the Autosol this was the result. I removed the black anodizing from the main tubes plus the chromed anodizing from the stays. I couldn't get such a good finish on the alloy lugs due to the raw nature of their castings. The tubes had their fair share of dings and sadly these show up more with the mirrored surface.

Anyway, just put it together and here is the result. I might get some Vitus decals die cut to match the 'Zonda' orange on the rims. Overall I'm quite pleased. I need to change the bar tape though...

 

[rocky ridge]

looks very nice i really want to get a vitus myself
surely 500 grade wet would put alot of scratches in that you need to then polish out
ive always uded a wet and dry sponge first then go down to 1000 1200 grade before polishing ive just done a easton elite marin frame like that and its about as shiny as it could be
used atosol on long strips of fleece wraped around the tube and push pull so it wraps around the tube and polishes all the tube at the same time
on a seperate note ive been interested in buying a vitus if you could give me any advise about models differences etc whitch ones to look out for i would appreciate it send me a pm please

 

[agentorange]

dfg

Hi RockyRidge, believe me, I tried various combinations of wet and dry on an old seatpost first, the 500 was as course as I wanted as there was a lot of resedue left over from the oven cleaner that just wasn't going anywhere with 800. Yes, the 500 caused scratching but nothing that couldn't then be removed with 800. The fine compound in the Autosol did the rest.

The Vitus frames are superb, they are quite common and cheap in France, mine came free with a Mavic bottom bracket I bought locally from a seller that just didn't have the tool to remove it so the frame came free. You can pick up clean 992 frames in France for around 100 quid but sadly they require specific seat-tube sizes (25.4) and equally anoyingly specific bottom brackets with tapered cups, don't buy a frame unless it has these with it. I'd imagine a replacement headset would be impossible to find too. Carbon TVT and Alan frames (same company) are nice too but they do have a habit of splitting internally.

The 992 was the last of the classic Vitus frames, it's essentially the same as the earlier 979 (last two digits denote year of design) but has the ovalized main tubes plus the superb internal Mavic headset. I love the design, it was way ahead of it's time with equally as modern geometry. There are lots of scare stories regarding the bonded build of the frame but I've yet to hear from anyone who's had one fail on them.

For me, no other frame works as nicely with the curvacious castings of the Campagnolo C-Record era parts as well as the Vitus, hence the complementary chromed look frame. I love the design of the woefully useless Athena calipers, the pointlessly over engineered Chorus rear mech and the organically sculptured Chorus chainset.

 

[ts88]

Here's mine.

Words can't explain the amount of work gone into this one as the polishing was all done by hand using 9 different grid of sanding paper.

Removing the clear layer on everything was a 4 letter word and i never do it again, but than again this one was bought new by family and now my most invaluable bike i have.

All stone stock and authentic (except the hoods).

 

[rocky ridge]

very very nice bikes both of them
i feel your pain and have been there myself i stripped the laquer off a marin bare easton elite frame that was some tough laquer
and wet and dried it down to 1200 grade then polished it up all by hand
what a lot of rubbing that took feckin for ever
but now its well shiny and the frame is 260 grames lighter without the laquer on it now weighes 1900 grames 19" frame
i am in the process of doing a zaskar race easton elite frame the same as the marin but im doing it a bit here a bit there and taking my time rather than doing it in one mind knumbing mission

 

[milton01]

i like it!

I like it allot!
I made this seat out of aluminium which would look perfect on that!!
sorry for the huge photos i can never sus out putting photos on here

 

[milko]

Looks comfy!