Classic & Vintage - How should I paint this Varsity

Help me paint this Varsity. I want to paint the main frame red, after that I'm open to ideas about the forks and chain and seat stays. complimenting colors are what I'm looking for since I'm not too creative and this is the first bike I will be painting, ( unless you count the old cheapo I painted right over the old paint on in the 60's ) I'm wanting understated but not bland. I'm going to top this bike off with a new Brooks B-17 honey color saddle. Give me the ideas please

Since you plan to use red, why not go with blue chain and seat stays and a white fork (since we're nearing July 4th)? You would have your own version of the Bicentenial Varsity.

Do you want to stick with the palette of Schwinn colours, or do you want to be creative?

East Hill

I think the red should be Schwinn. The other colors I'm not particular. I was thinking about an off white for the forks but I don't have any preconcieved ideas for the seat and chain stays

I'm painting a stumpjumper black with red seat and head tubes, I think the black and red will look good together. Red with cream will look nice too, kind of a 57 chevy colorscheme, which probably weighs about the same as a Varsity.:D

Red with cream sounds brilliant to me...it's a classic combination.

East Hill

Regular readers have seen the deep, rich, almost-candy metallic red I selected for my 1959 Capo, and it was one of CyclArt's standard colors.

With a Schwinn Varsity, however, I would also consider Coppertone, Kool Lemon, or Campus Green, as well.

Its already campus green and if the paint was in a bit better shape I would just leave it alone. However since its got some pretty bad dings and spots where its worn off I'm gonna paint it. I like the 57 Chev style red and cream. With a Brooks honey color saddle I'm thinkin it would look pretty good. Keep the ideas coming. John E any pics of the capo you can post or tell me where to look.

So how would you execute a two-tone color scheme on a Varsity? Since there aren't any frame lugs to use as boundaries between colors, you could go pretty much hog-wild -- exactly what you shouldn't do.

The judicious use of masking tape where the chainstay meet the bottom bracket and also the seatstays where they meet the top tube and down tube would be critical but I have a pretty good eye hand coordination so I think I can pull it off to where the changes won't look out of place maybe doing some fancy taping to make the illusion of frame lugs. The fork will be easy since its off the frame and then the base color before the main colors of cream and red. I think I paint the red first and then mask of the frame and do the seat and chainstays