Some of you may remember the 1952 Paff I acquired and repainted a couple of years ago. Still a great riding bike and starting to acquire its own patina which I am happy about.

But during that renovation I found the original fork was compromised, so I substituted in a repainted newer fork. It looks and works fine, but one thing that has always bothered me is the original had chrome socks and my replacement did not. No way I was going to pay to chrome the fork either.

Recently I came across another fork, this one with chrome socks. I did a test fit and it works even better than my first replacement, so all I needed to do is paint. This I did yesterday.

It turned out great. I had let the paint (Rustoleum/Tremclad) dry for 12+ hours and then removed the masking tape. Fantastic! What I didn’t see though was that I had laid my hand on one of the blades and the paint though dry was still soft enough I now have a light palm print right along the blade. Dang!

Gonna let it harden for a couple of days then see if it will polish out, however my experience with Rustoleum is it doesn’t take to polishing well. If it doesn’t I will light sand and recoat just that blade and leave it alone for a week!

Lesson learned: don’t touch it until you are really sure the paint has cured!!!!