A word about paint

This is a pretty dramatic transformation. The paint on Frankenbike was not in good shape  after 30 years of drops and dings. When I first got the bike I had covered most of it in little skeleton stickers that I got from Mrs. Tiggy Winkles where I was working in their warehouse- see the very first post in this series for the backstory. After all these years, in anticipation of getting the bike painted, I decided to peel them off one by one. I also tried to get the Powerbar stickers off the head tube and seat post and even with a razor blade I couldn't get under it to lift it off. It just flaked away in little shards......

If you're interested in restoring a bike like this, getting it repainted is essentially a 3 part process:

Step 1: Strip down the bike: This is pretty obvious I suppose, but you need all of the same tools required to rebuild a bike in order to remove the parts in the first place. For this bike in particular I ended up buying a Park Tools HCW-4 Bottom Bracket Wrench, as well the HCW-5 Lock Ring Wrench, and SPA-1 Pin Spanner Wrench. Well, actually, I also borrowed these tools from my friend Matei, because I was too impatient to wait for them to arrive after ordering them. 

After making this investment it only made sense to seek out a like-for-like replacement bottom bracket. I found an identical match for the original Tange professional model at Rivendell cycle works. But first I had to get the original BB out. The video highlighted below was a godsend to me, particular the use of the mallet (I used a rubber one) to tap the lock ring and drive-side cups loose, which were rusted into the threads. These BB cups are a bit fiddly and the mallet technique was invaluable.

I did order and receive a very cheap chain breaker and crank extractor from Amazon. The crank extractor worked fine to remove the crank and get at the BB, but the chain breaker broke immediately and was promptly replaced with a Park tool Mini.

To remove the headset, I googled "how to make your own threaded headset remover" and watched some videos, then made one. It worked fine. You'll also need a headset wrench if your bike has a threaded headset. 

If you live in Ottawa, consider giving Phat Moose some business. They charged me $5 to remove a stuck pedal. My pedal wrench wasn't long enough to get the leverage required. I waltzed in and they helped me out on the spot. You won't get help like that in a lot of stores. 

Last point- don't forget to remove the cable guide under the bottom bracket!

Step 2: Well, I suppose step 2 is to go somewhere that paints bikes and tell them what you want. If you aren't sure what you want, check out Prismatic Powders: it's the world's largest selection of Powder Coat colours. Powder coating is an electrostatic process that creates a particularly hard finish, so is great for steel bikes. 

I chose a blue colour that was somewhere between the Open U.P. and the Belgian National Cycling team. I then emailed RLD Industries of Ottawa to ask if they were willing to do a small job like a bike frame. "Absolutely!" was the immediate response of Greg Dennis (the D in RLD stands for Dennis), so I brought in my Bridgestone, as well as an old Torpado that my friend Andrew wanted done. 

Both frames were sandblasted and powder coated for $275 each, plus tax. Andrew's frame had some reasonably intricate lugwork, as well as some chrome that needed to be taped off and protected. The finished frames were amazing, as the photos of the Bridgestone indicate. The sandblasting finally took care of the last remnants of the Powerbar sticker. 

The RLD folks were really excellent to deal with and the frames were done in 3 days, which is amazing considering they sandblasted the frames, powder coated them, and then baked them. The powder used has a high gloss, polyester finish, which is also super tough.

They didn't have the specific Prismatic Powders colour I wanted in stock, but were able to match it exactly using some in-stock paint so that I didn't have to wait for a special order. 

As I point out on the Interweb Time Waster in the parts section, if I was getting my Merckx 7-11 frame, or my Europcar Colnago repainted, I would be going to VeloColour in Toronto and paying a significant sum to get a perfect reproduction done. That said, I couldn't have been happier with RLD.

Step 3: This final step is really two additional options. First, I ordered replacement decals from Velocals. They have an incredible assortment for vintage bikes.

I then took the naked frame to David Slingshot, who is a total pro at wrapping frames. People bring their $20,000+ bikes to David and he custom cuts various materials like a surgeon and applies them seamlessly to protect the frames. I asked him to both apply the new decals and wrap the frame. He also had the tools required to press the new headset, so he did that for me as well. David did raise an initial concern that the paint was not 100% perfect owing to a few small imperfections that the wrap accentuated a bit, but when I filled him in on the age of the frame and the price of the powder coating, he was subsequently very complimentary. As he would point out, he's a perfectionist who works on machines for other perfectionists. To that end, the decals and wrapping was not far off the price of the paint work, but I think it's worth it to protect the integrity of the project for the next 30 years!