It is mostly time you need as I don't think the skill requirement is that high although being able to strip your bike down to the frame and fork makes life easier.

I am probably ten hours into the refinishing and probably have half that again ahead of me although the clear coating is more about waiting for coats of clear shellac to dry than anything else.

Started with a clean frame and about 400 pieces of coffee labels which had an adhesive backing which is cheating a little as a true decoupage would be a process of gluing and overlapping small pieces of paper little by little until the object was covered.

Met a fellow that used postage stamps and said it took him 40 hours to complete the work... he had cut the postage stamps into thirds and quarters and had to apply them with tweezers.

Have seen frames and forks like this for sale and all kinds of materials have been used... newspapers and comics seem like a popular source of materials but I wasn't going to start cutting up my vintage comic collection for this.

Anyways... covered everything but the lugs and the hardest part was cutting very small pieces to fit their rather simple curves and I have a few more little spots to complete like the brake bridge and while that is setting I will take the rear brake apart and polish it to within an inch of it's life. Waited on this as the shellac is also a good adhesive and will help secure the stickers to a few hard to finish areas.

Have polished everything else by hand using Mother's Aluminium polish and this also was a few good hours of work... would have been made easier with a dremel and a poilishing head (which I bought yesterday).

Also chose the stickers as it should make little repairs fairly easy... the shellac forms a pretty tough finish as well.