Originally Posted by
Duane Behrens
Thanks for that. Enjoyed your account of the rebuild shop. Hope the owner accepts your offer to help organize. He'll benefit, and you may find a treasure.
I've never applied Velocal decals to a bike before. I expect it's a one-shot deal, so I'm a little nervous about it. The directions recommend AGAINST clear coating over the decal once it's on. Not sure why. They didn't have a "Sport" decal that I could see, so I guess the top tube will just run naked. Any thoughts or advice on this step are appreciated.
Also, I picked up a new Shimano FD yesterday to replace the ruined original. $29 in the box. Hate to spend the money but I just don't have time to look around for a good used one. The old derailleur was a "high-normal." This one, as all FDs are now, is a "low-normal," in which the spring is oriented toward bringing the chain down to the small chain ring. (Apparently, the "high-normal" was tried for a while to make the shifters operate in the same direction to upshift and downshift.) Anyway, I hope I can suss out how to mount this "alternate" system. Thanks.
I've never used Velocals, either, and I've never done any clearcoating on any bikes I've had. I use a car polish, one of those "Once a Year" polishes, and I get a fairly high shine out of it, and it'll never peel off or have some bad reaction to a particular paint type or surface prep. If I had a new powdercoat finish, I wouldn't want any clear coat to touch it. Let the powdercoat speak for itself, and heck, I don't expect to keep a bike long enough for a future condition problem on clear-coating or non-clear-coating to matter, anyway. Every used car I've ever had that had been clear-coated ended up with peeling clear-coat all over it. I don't care much for clear-coating.
Some decals will react badly to a clearcoat, shrinking or loosening of the plastic/vinyl material in the decal, depending on the type of paint applied. Any water-type decals are far too fragile for a clearcoat to use. But, with any decal you have to be careful not to use any sort of high-abrasive polish, since it can easily remove the graphics from the plastic. Me, I'd just use a nice wax over your frame and decals. Brand new paint, brand new decals, why take a chance?