1988 SR500 Criterium Series. Originally had the “Blueberry” paint job, but I got tired of the silver steel fork (polished and clearcoated) not matching the blue paint on the rest of the frame. The plan was to strip the paint, polish, then clearcoat with 2K Glamour paint. After reluctantly stripping the excellent DuPont Imron factory paint, I started out with steel wool to take down the machining marks on the various frame tubes. The tubes on my frame looked as though they had been turned in a lathe. Those marks took a while to smooth out, but the aluminum was pretty soft. Once the tubes were relatively smooth, I used Barkeeper’s Friend (the kind for aluminum) to polish the aluminum finer, and get a shine.
It looks pretty good, I think. I may still clearcoat it if the bare metal corrodes, but I prefer the simplicity of just leaving it bare, and using Barkeeper’s Friend to clean it. Would love to do this to one of the 2.8 cantilevered frames, I think that would look awesome. Good project to keep me busy during the downtime and steady rain of the past few weeks.
NDS
Rear Dropout
Weld textures ordinarily hidden by paint
Finished?