First Coat!

I find it to be absolutely amazing that the Japanese can make such good products and not even promote them. Krylon say's that they are known world-wide, but they are nothing to this paint. I don't know how to say what it is called or tell you any real details about it, all I know is that I asked a very polite older man who worked at the store about the paint and he explained it to me as I asked questions. Turns out, this stuff is water based, requires no primer and sprays great. I did forget to ask him how long to wait between coats and how long it had to set before I could sand anything. Oh well, I bet 4 hours is a good guarantee.

For those that don't know, the mountain bike shown here is what my frame looked like before I decided that it needed a change. I feel it's important to note that this is a 10 year old bike and I still love the thing (I am the original owner) even with the big dent in the down tube (I forget how it got there). But, with age comes damage and oxidation (aluminum frame). So I felt that maybe a new paint job would do it some good. After a few days of contemplation and computer renderings I finally decided that purple was the way to go and that once I started there was no turning back.

I started sanding, and sanding, and sanding some more before I convinced myself to just focus on the problem areas and not taking the entire frame down to bare metal. I mean come on, it's a mountain bike, not a show car, the cleanest it will ever be is after the final spray of clear coat, after that it's all trails and dirt and nobody will be paying attention to a little imperfection in the paint.

Anyway, what you see to the right here is the last picture of the frame with any blue on it. I did a lot of work to the fork too, but completely neglected to take any pictures of it.

So now that I had spent three days removing paint and picking blue boogers out of my nose - by the way, the shower makes a great place to sand paint off a frame, very easy clean up - I was ready to go get my paint.

Made a special trip out to the store and got some very fine sand paper (I know, not a show car, but I couldn't resist) and the paint. I have plans to put "cannondale" and "F500" back on the frame, but I have yet to work out how I'm going to do the stenciling.

I will post new updates as the painting progresses, as for now, it's time to go get a haircut and get ready for tomorrow's 16.5 hour work day!