Classic & Vintage - Picking up the Bianchi from the Powder Coaters

A bit ago I took my mid 80's Bianchi Squadra to a powder coater I've never dealt with before, pointed to Columbus tubing sticker which had a splash of celeste coloring in it like "A" in this pic (http://i15.ebayimg.com/04/i/000/ed/30/b5d1_1.JPG), and told him to strip the bike and match it to that the best he could.

I'm interested to see how he's done. I'll be posting some pics in this thread later today.

I [picked the frame up.

For reference, here's how it looked before:

http://www.brian-payne.com/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=353&g2_serialNumber=2
actually, that pic is a year old, before i put 3000 miles on is this past summer. It's hard to tell, but the paint was REALLY beat up and scratched to hell.

and now:
http://www.brian-payne.com/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=2227&g2_serialNumber=2

http://www.brian-payne.com/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=2218&g2_serialNumber=2

http://www.brian-payne.com/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=2224&g2_serialNumber=2

http://www.brian-payne.com/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=2221&g2_serialNumber=2

the pics really dont do it much justice bc my camera really takes crappy pics unless it's really bright out, which it isnt here in southeast PA today.

I'm overall happy with the job the guy did. He doesnt only do bikes and you can tell, because he didnt tape off the head tube very well and got powder in it. I had a heck of a time getting the headset on, but after some scrapping inside the tube it went in.

There are also some small runs, including on the front eyelits on the fork and the bottom of the BB shell.

He charged me $90 to strip and powder the frame. Like i mentioned I just asked him to eyeball it and make it a celeste color. I think overall it looks pretty good and this is basically my "vintage frame with modern components ride on the weekend with faster riders" bike. This isnt a resto by any means, but a redo of a bike that gets used a lot. I love the ride of this frame.

I just ordered a decal kit from cyclomondo in AU.


BTW, does anyone know how early 90's Chorus indexed stuff shifts? I've got a line on an entire group with wheels but I've heard early campy indexed stuff isnt the best. I'm trying to build this bike up all campy, but like I said this a bike to ride, not to look at all the time, so in the end i'll put whatever I have around and works best on it if I can't find a good deal on some campy ergo stuff.

Looks good so far. Keep us updated on it's progress.

Dan

Really nice. Make sure to post finished project. Looks like your PC guy did an almost dead on match.

BTW, does anyone know how early 90's Chorus indexed stuff shifts?.






Powdercoating job looks good. I bet it'll really stand out once you get the decals placed and the bike built back up.

As to the Chorus indexed stuff, there has been a lot of arguements over campy index systems with really no clear answer, except that they were rather quirky. Given enough time I'm sure campy would've improved on it, but in their R&D they ushered in Ergo shifting instead.

I have campy Record 'Syncro ll' 8v index shifting (circa; '92) on one of my bikes and never had any problems with it. At one point I even used a Shimano 600 8-speed R derailleur with it and it still shifted just fine. Now I have an 8-speed Chorus derailleur on it and the indexing is great, so who knows. I think a lot of the problems with the Syncro quirkiness is that they need a rr derailleur that has a "free floating" top pulley for them to shift good.