PaginaVilot

I'm looking to get a Windsor the Hour and I was curious which route I should go.
Right away, I will be stripping the paint off and repainting it.

Will it be any easier to strip on a matte finish or a glossy finish? Or does it not even matter?
Also, if anyone has stripped the frame, I was curious, how does it turn out underneath? What kind of color is it?

ianjk

How are you planning on stripping it?

Sandblast? Sandpaper? Chemical? Grinder + Brush?

PaginaVilot

Whoops.. Forgot to mention that. I'll be using some kind of chemical.

ianjk

Also, have you stripped a bike before?

petebow

you can use aircraft stripper, available from any autoparts store, it comes in a rattle can and under neath that it will just be bare grey steel. nothing to exciting. you jsut spray it on let it sit for 20 minutes then scrap it off. i use any spatula like tool to scrape it and i do it in like four sections, one at a time. i would get a matte finish since you wont have the extra clear coat to strip. if your planning on leaving it stripped i would find some place to do like an acid dip or something like that so you get all the paint off. the aircraft stripper requires a bit of post stripping cleanup and sanding etc. you should be able to disassemble it, strip it with the rattle can stuff, do all the finishing bits and rebuild it in a day if you are a quick worker.

petebow

oh and a wire brush can help too!

jet sanchEz

It might be cheaper and less time-consuming to get it powder-coated. Here in Toronto there is a factory that will blast, dip, and coat for $75. I tried a rattle-can job on my Razesa and after spending $40 on paint and hours on it, it looked ass-y, so I took it to the dood and got it back looking wicked-perfect in a week's time.

PaginaVilot

Thanks for the tips.. I'm still tryng to decde what color I would like to paint the frame.. If a solid color, id take it to get professionally powdercoated. But I remember seeing a frame with a raw finish.. (if that iswhat its called.. Its gray with a bronzish tint, but not enough to be called bronze. Anyone know what I'm talking about and how to achieve it? I was thinking I could do this at home myself with a strip chemical

I'll try to get pictures posted tonight.

j0e_bik3

ex-professional painter with 30 years experience (custom motorcycles and bicycles) with some advice learned the hard way:

NO! DON'T DO IT! DON'T USE A CHEMICAL STRIPPER

I HATE CHEMICAL STRIPPERS for several reasons:

A) they suck at getting ALL the paint off, usually it takes several applications (even when bagged in plastic) and still some of the original finish will remain in tiny creases and crevices.

B) because it’s just about impossible to get all of the paint off, some of the stripper will ALSO remain on the surface, just waiting to do it’s job and remove the very next paint it touches, like your new paint job!

C) you couldn’t pick a worse thing to scrape into the trash and contaminate the planet with.

so GO TO THE BLASTERS (media blasting service), it’s easy, it’s clean, YOU don’t have to get all messy, it gets ALL the old paint AND corrosion off, leaves the surface slightly textured, perfect to topcoat and in most cases it’s about $20-$40.
you can also get decent results with a wire wheel on an angle grinder, or fast power drill, but it’ll take quite a while, there’s all the powdered paint mess to deal with, you’ll go through a few wire wheels, you’ll get a few wire slivers stuck in your fingers, yada yada

so just take it to a blaster and save yourself alot of grief.

oh and that color your talking about is probably matte titanium powdercoat, it has a graphite/bronze hue, and is one of the coolest new colors available in powdercoats these days.

ianjk

Well, if you just strip it, it will turn into a rusted POS very fast. You could go for a clear powdercoat or some sort of protection.

PaginaVilot

Hey,
I found the pictures of the frame I was talking about. It's not as bronze as I thought it was.. but here it is..

1. https://www.flickr.com/photos/tophers...n/photostream/
2. https://www.flickr.com/photos/tophers...n/photostream/

Is this what it would look like under?

EDIT: now that I think about it.. I think the bronzish tint that I'm seeing, is just the burn marks from welds. But I really like the smooth look of the frame above..

operator

+1 Seriously. Waste of time, money and your health by trying to strip a frame yourself. And for a ****ty result too.

MattFashion

^+another 1
for the time and lack of effort it takes to have a frame media blasted, save the money and get it done.
you'll get an essentially ready to paint frame back with zero hours spent sanding over and over again.
i have my frames blasted then powdercoated. every frame is under a hundred bucks in paint.
even if you just have it media blasted then rattle-can'd it will still be way worth the 20 bucks or so.

jet sanchEz

Here are some shots of the bike I mentioned earlier in the thread, my Razesa that I got powder-coated. It is a semi-gloss white and it may lose some of the shine but it won't chip or rust.