Sweet Raleigh & Bruce Gordon! To use the excuse that I use on wife, "my bikes / colors are like your shoes, Honey, different colors for different moods!" I've got celeste, yellow, black, red/white, blue, navy, and burgundy for every occasion. Now you have me thinking I need a brown one.

Update: The Bianchi has been at the powder coater for a while now. He's got a big backlog, and I'm not in any rush. I got an update from him this week, saying that there were at least four layers of paint on it and it was "resistant to media blasting." I didn't even know that was a thing. Anyway, he sent me some cool pictures. How's this for a celeste color palette?

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...591c8721_b.jpg

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...5fb2386e_b.jpg

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...0e8d8dee_b.jpg

Curiously, it looks like whatever the yellowish layer is was over the top of an earlier celeste layer. I had been assuming it was a base coat used to get the desired creamy effect in the celeste.

It’s good to see some progress! The pics brings back memories of stripping my frame with its multiple colors of paint. Ah, those long evenings of getting loopy sniffing orange paint stripper and scraping off bubbling paint! 🤪. Looking forward to see how the build comes along.

"resistant to media blasting" = too thick, too hard to blast without risking too much damage to metal underneath.

"got all the paint off, right before it blew holes in the tubing" :eek:

Upcharge?

He didn't say, but I expect so.

Yep, can't imagine they encounter too many they have to do the hard way, that is brutal with all that paint. Looks like every new layer was well done and really stuck.

I've done a couple of strips now and have a couple of things that make a big difference, first is to very rough sand the long flat sections to break the ice and help the stripper get to work, the other is to get it hot in the sun on a black plastic sheet, soak it down with stripper, wait until it starts to bubble and soak it down again get after it with a big stiff wire brush when it starts to bubble more.

Still very labor intensive and I plan to build a 'hot box" for future ones out of a couple glass screen doors to speed the process. a heat gun comes in handy on stubborn spots as well.

The hot box will also help to cure paint if I ever get that ambitious (not likely without some serious help from my painter buddy, also not likely). :roflmao2:

Le mie tre lira
 

Not sure whether it's been mentioned in the thread but straight from one of the horse's mouths, a number of local Bianchi cognoscenti claimed that the painters mixed up the Celeste color fresh every morning.

A local frame builder had a contract with Bianchi for many years to do the warranty repairs and factory resprays on their better models. He tends to support that theory too as he's had to match the paint on a LOT of Bianchi frames... ;):rolleyes:

I started riding with the local CR group back in 2007. A lot of them had Bianchis and I developed a bad case of Celeste Envy. I picked up a very low mileage 1988 Giro.... then came a very nice 1981 Campione Del Mondo and finally a 1990 NIB NOS Mondiale frame that I built up with a mishmash of Campy components.

The Mondiale is the same size and geometry as the 88 Giro except the frame is Columbus SLX not Formula 2. They fit me perfectly and both handle superbly.

1988 Giro eBay pic with the skyward saddle.

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...704bea1022.jpg

1981 Campione Del Mondo with a greenish tinge Celeste. One of my top 10 favorite rider.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...edd065489c.jpg

1990 Mondiale SLX

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...0a16dd29bb.jpg

On a monitor the colors look close but... Graphics cards and graphics software are rarely calibrated to show actual colors. Then throw in different cameras and phones, lighting and so on. your not going to get accurate colors, especially on a website.

For example: 2 shots of the same bike - the 88 Giro taken at the same time:

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...258207623d.jpg
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...77330af7e6.jpg

This is the greenish cast Celeste on the 81 Campione Del Mondo.

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...4a56c37a87.jpg

On one CR ride in 2007 there were four 1949-1951 Bianchi Paris-Robaix bikes. All different colors of Celeste!

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...468f57adec.jpg

Campy Paris-Roubaix shifter.

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...de4703666e.jpg

verktyg

For some odd reason I think that the stripped down paint looks perfect as is. Just have Mark Rainey smooth it out, clear coat with decals and be done. You'll never have to sweat about whether you've got the right celeste, as you have every shade ever made somewhere on it.

I'd heard that from Ed as well!

I've come to the conclusion that one must have a Justice Potter Stewart understanding of celeste. I can't define it, but I know it when I see it.

That’s like the first house I bought that was built in 1918. Most of the rooms were wallpapered, so I decided to strip it off before painting, only to find another 2-3 layers below that. I’m intrigued by Gugie’s idea. Get some Pegoretti decals and you’re good to go.

I agree! Clear coat that bad boy and you'll have a Bianchi that's the envy of the entire cycling world.

+1! Call it "Everlasting Celeste Gobstopper." :D

Speaking of Celeste...
 

Something to warm the cockles of Bianchi haters:

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...466336e351.jpg

Spaghetti Legs "That’s like the first house I bought that was built in 1918. Most of the rooms were wallpapered, so I decided to strip it off before painting, only to find another 2-3 layers below that."

I feel your pain... My house was built in 1926. There were areas in several rooms where the old wall paper was peeling away in sheets. Tried to do an "easy" fix but in places the wall paper was up to 5 layers thick with paint layers in between. Took 3-4 friends and me well over a month working evenings to get it off, plaster patch and repaint the place. :eek:

WHITE! NOT CELESTE! :rolleyes:

verktyg :50:

My solution in our 2nd house (Redwood City) where we had one room with multiple wall paper layers + paint over it was to just screw and glue some 1/4" sheet rock on top with tape and mud. Turned out to be the best surfaced wall in the entire house.

Me too... Don't forget OSHA Safety Green. It's fairly close to aged Celeste...


https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...d764d9543.jpeg

Hey, Andy - I just realized that the Silca pump I have will probably fit your frame perfectly. It's marked at the top with a 50, and uncompressed measures 54cm.

And yeah, it's celeste :)

DD

But which celeste is it? ;)

I'll check in with you when I get the bike back.

Actually, I think it would look really cool to do a bike that way if it has four or five layers of paint...smooth it out...polish and clear coat. It would be unique...preserving multiple periods of the bike's history...

Obviously can't use 1/2" thick paint on a bike, but some kind of layering and skilled removal like this guy does would definitely be unique!
https://design-milk.com/carving-pain...-allan-peters/

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...b268c2586d.jpg
David Allan Peters, Untitled #5, 2018

Funny you should ask: it's two different shades! Yup, the pump handle (top) is more sky-blueish, and the exposed part of the main body has reacted over time to become a greener shade. The main body is sky-blueish, just like the handle, underneath the aluminum sleeve.

What's this tell me? Many of the green-tinged celestes we're seeing may have originally been closer to sky-blue and changed hues over time due to exposure. This is certainly true of the pump in question, which, by the way, came with my Super Leggera and is too small for the frame.

DD

Coming home soon!

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...428c4106_b.jpg

It looks like a pretty close match to the 1990 Mondiale [MENTION=61614]verktyg[/MENTION] posted above. I don't like the "Made in Italy" band decal above the shifters, so I picked a different one for the base of the seat tube.

Was the cartouche on these a decal? VeloCals had something like that, but I decided to go without it.

I’m subscribed to this thread and I get irrationally excited when I see an update, and finally a finished picture! My 1990 Giro needs some of this, hanging in its botched paint job state for way too long.

Looks fine and proper to me!

Pardon my ignorance but what do you mean by cartouche?

It's a term I learned from [MENTION=159681]Bianchigirll[/MENTION] and possibly coined by her in its bicycle use, but a perfect word for what it is either way. Historically, it referred to a mark impressed on a rifle to denote the manufacturer or inspector or some such thing. And Wikipedia tells me that it can also refer to something that denoted a royal name in Egyptian hieroglyphics. In the bike context, if I'm using it correctly, it refers to the branding on the seat stay cap.

Learn something new everyday, thanks! Yep those were small seat stay cap decals/ stickers on my 1990 Giro (celeste text, clear decal background, on satin black paint). They were blue on the celeste paint. Got measurements of the size in my notebook somewhere. There was also a similar small size sticker on one side of the BB (NDS I think).
Edit: might as well add the pics I got saved.


https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...3b615731fc.png

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...45f4bee63.jpeg