I know this may sound like sacrilege to the C&V crowd, but I have a 1985 Schwinn Paramount frame that I want very badly to strip down and repaint on my own. I have ridden this bike thousands of miles, I live in a very humid part of the country, I sweat like a pig, and it shows on the bike (despite my best efforts to keep it dry). The cable guides on the top tube are seriously rusty and the rust appears to have founds its way underneath the guides and paint resulting in a raised area under 2 of the 3 guides. There is some other frame rust outside of this.

The bike is currently in the shop being stripped of its parts as I have lots of bikes in the stable and this one was not getting much use. I want to remove the top tube cable guides altogether as part of the refinish and resurrect this bike as a fixed gear because I know I will ride it then (I have come to love fixed riding more than riding with gears over the years). I will probably just ebay most of the drivetrain parts (not original parts by any stretch, in fact I had this built up with Campy 10 speed parts).

I don't want to screw up the refinishing of the bike by doing a do-it-yourself garage job, but I also don't want to spend the $$$ to send it Waterford for a complete overhaul. The frame is not going to get used otherwise.

Thoughts? Maybe I'll get in touch with Dr. Deltron and go the in-between route. From what I've seen in his posts regarding price, it may be a nice compromise and I know he can do a much better job with the frame than I ever could.