Originally Posted by
Fang66
Penelope?
I'll ask her, but my gut says probably not
Originally Posted by
Andy_K
Wow, she really cleans up nicely. How did you strip the old paint and rust?
I used paint stripper first. I did a few applications. That got most of it. I then used a wire brush wheel attachment in my corded drill (important to use the corded as it has a trigger lock). The wire brush did great to get rid of the rusty areas. This was the most time consuming part for me, but I was pretty anal about making sure I was down to bare metal everywhere. A few areas the wire wheel couldn't get into, so I got those with sandpaper. I hand sanded the whole frame with some 220 grit to smooth out the brush marks and reduce the rust pitting areas. Rather than judge purely by sight, I used touch. Basically, if it didn't feel perfectly smooth when I ran my hand over it, I sanded it some more.
I agree she did clean up beautifully! Like I said, I loved her bare metal look, but running around naked isn't practical.
It's going to be really hard not to touch her while I'm waiting for the different coats of paint to dry. I think I'm going to do a few more coats of primer. I want to be able to provide a perfectly smooth base for the color coats. I'm thinking I'll do a few more coats of primer before I wet sand it. There are 2 coats (cans) on there now. Trying to wet sand the forks after the first can didn't work. It was way too thin. Even using no pressure, I was cutting down to the metal too quickly. Maybe I'll use the 600 grit instead of the 320.
While I am having fun painting her, I've already come to the conclusion this is the only time I will ever paint a frame.

I've spent about half what it would have cost to have it powder coated here in town. It's fun, but I could have spent the time working on many other projects. Plus, powder coat would be stronger.