For those of you playing along with copies of the home game...
I've sort of been out of it the past few days- broken tooth, resulting infection, root canal...
Today I got out of the house, did a little bit of shopping. First to find matching paint- the guy at the hobby store let me bring my bike in to attempt to match the paint- and he gave me a hand with it- giving his opinion. After that I tried finding an ink eraser. The hobby store didn't have one. I went to the craft store next door, they didn't have one. I went to Office Depot. They didn't have one. Who carries ink erasers anymore?
I turned the bike on the stand so the bare metal patches were at a little under eye level. I mixed up a paste of Barkeeper's Friend- applied it to the bare metal- and took a Q-Tip and scrubbed the area that rust appeared to be starting on, and then I let it sit. I started shaking up the paint- probably for 3 or 4 minutes. While I was shaking the paint, I got out my brush, grabbed some paper towels and Q-Tips and went back out to the garage. I wiped up the Barkeeper's Friend paste and then wiped it down with Windex. After that dried, I uncaped the paint and stirred it with a toothpick for a good minute or so and started applying it with a little skinny brush.
I thought the paint would be much thicker- but it was like blue water going on to the bare metal. So the next brush dip, I didn't wipe it off on the edge of the jar- and a big ol' glop of paint went on the bike- and I *hope* I caught it in time with a Q-Tip (we'll see when the sun is shining), and I hope it evened out.
If I were to do this again, I'd practice painting on metal before I did something that was worth something. Just so I knew about the paint. I would also think a little better and know that I should be applying the paint in thin coats. I really shouldn't be in a hurry- riding kind of really hurts my face right now.
As far as the color match...
I used Model Master "Arctic Blue Metallic"
We'll see how it looks when it dries- I'm glad it's on the underside of the chainstays- the match is fine for there. If it were in a more prominent spot... we'll see.
