I spent the weekend with a couple cans of aircraft stripper, some primer, black spray paint, and and some clear coat to give my bike a new look for the new year.

First I stripped the frame. An important note: if you do this, don't just buy the flimsy nitrile gloves you can get at the auto parts store. With the aircraft stripper, they're worthless. Get some of the yellow (or whatever color they come in at your supermarket) kitchen cleaning gloves. You know, the ones that your mom would wear while cleaning up the kitchen? Yeah, those. They don't disintegrate in the stripper, and they protect your forearms. Protect your forearms? Yeah, a little bit of splatter = chemical burns from the stripper. It's nasty stuff.

As the frame would now be natural ti, a maroon colored fork was not going to cut it. So, I taped off the drop outs and steerer tube down to the crown race, gave the existing paint a light sanding and shot it with a few coats of primer, several coats of black, and even more clear coat. It's not perfect, but it looks pretty good for a rattle can job. While riding, you'll never be able to tell.

The results, in the form of a crappy cellphone pic:



Yes, I know the brakes aren't yet connected in the photo. I will probably order some decals from Lynskey at some point, and I need to put the bottle cages back on, but I'm happy with it at this point.