Ktodd

Thanks for the info. I think I'm gonna skip trying the intercoat over chrome and just do what you're calling flamboyant. Anyone who wants really good painting instructional videos watch ETOE on YouTube. The guy who runs the channel (Martin I think) knows just about everything on painting bikes including hydro dipping and airbrush techniques along with how to setup and use spray guns properly and has a decent sense of humor and they're well produced so the vids are entertaining. Even shows you how to get a pro looking paint job with rattle cans from Michael's. No matter what skill or experience level your at you'll prob benefit from watching them.

Ktodd

[QUOTE=steelbikeguy;22798848]Yeah, I had a 75' Fuji The Finest that was fully chromed but painted over most of it except for parts of the seat and chain stays and it had chromed lugs ...do you or anyone else knows why they bothered chroming the entire bike only to paint over most of it? Seems like a waste of time and money, not to mention the added weight.

Ktodd

I think the term Flamboyant is just now reffered to as "Candy Paint" jobs, seems to be the same procedure or nearly the same. Anyways, the results seem to be the same.

steelbikeguy

If they had to chrome the seat stays and the head tube lugs, it might have been faster to just dip the whole frame in the chroming tank instead of dipping the rear end (for the stays), and then dipping the head tube (for the head lugs) separately.

I'm not sure what the costs of the different parts of the chroming process are. The chrome itself might be pricey, but there is also the electricity, the chroming facility (or they might have farmed it out), the labor cost of polishing the portions of the frame where the chrome would show, the need to flush out all of the chroming acids(?), etc.
The chrome itself is pretty thin.. not sure that it would add that much weight. A good quality chrome process would do a base layer of copper, polish it, then a layer of nickel, polish it, and then apply the layer of chrome. I don't think (or expect) the bike manufacturers went to the expense of all three layers.

There was a good episode of Modern Marvels about chrome. I think it is available on youtube. It definitely provides a good explanation of the chroming processes.

Steve in Peoria

Road Fan

At the same time that we as amateurs are talking about possibly doing DIY chroming, chromium is a material with restrictions on its uses.

The following link (https://www.compliancegate.com/heavy...united-states/) should take us to a site which summarizes the issues of regulations and standards related to heavy metals. Examples of the heavy metals of concern include: lead, mercury, nickel, chromium, and arsenic. I don't think these 5 are the only ones which are of concern. We should all be aware of lead, mercury, and arsenic, but the properties of nickel and chromium are probably more obscure.

Road Fan

I recall the Candy Paint thing on hot rods built in the early '60s, but I don't have any idea technically what was going on.

Kilroy1988 

Candy paint involves putting color into the clear coat. It's not the same thing as we're discussing.

Ktodd

I'll look for that episode of Modern Marvels. Thanks. I do remember that on one of the chain stays on the Fuji an area of the chrome had been worn away and I remember thinking at the time that it looked like copper. underneath.

curiousabe

Thanks, why is this advised against? Im having Cicli Barco making me a custom frame with columbus xcr tubing made and was contemplating going for a cromovelato style color

Lattz

First, congrats. Never hearing about them I took a peek and like what I have seen. As I wrote above its advised against in home applications although - this is only guesswork - they might ask if you want cromovelato why do you want a stainless frame? I think in modern framebuilding stainless is what visible concrete is for modern architecture. Finally they can make frames showing it off purely "here it is, steel is real" and the satin raw steel is beautiful. Anyway a frame builder knows and has the means one does not have at home to not eff up the frame. I think you cannot go wrong either way. I personally would keep the satin steel finish at least on parts but i know other might want to have them chromed we are all different. Im no bike painter but if i would ride the bike on a daily basis CV would never be an option since fhe vintage ones almost always peeled (see right in the first post Rob's concern on the same). But tech must have evolved a lot in the past 40 years when CV was "the hype"

steelbikeguy

cromoveloato does look pretty cool, so I understand a desire to duplicate the effect.
Does Cicli Barco have experience with this, or would it be an experiment? I'd think I'd want to see some evidence that it holds up over the years before I'd commit to it.

While stainless avoids the environmental issues of chrome, it seems that the underlying issue of getting paint to stick to a polished surface is unchanged. Perhaps it is possible to leave enough surface texture for the paint to grab while still being shiny enough to get the full visual effect?

Steve in Peoria

Kilroy1988 

Stainless steel can be scuffed just as easily as a chrome surface for the sake of paint adherence. There are plenty of stainless and titanium frames that get painted, and chromovelato/flamboyant paint with lacquer applied directly over the metal should have a similar effect regardless of the material.

The main consideration with shooting the lacquer directly onto the metal is just that it has to be done right the first time - there's no sanding or buffing the paint once it's laid out like regular enamels, as far as I can imagine the process going.

-Gregory

79pmooney

Chromovelato is a new word to me but my best friends' dad (they were twins, the apostrophe is in the right place) had an Allegro he bought new around 1965. Lacquer over polished chrome, fading to chrome on the stays and forks. Most gorgeous frame I have ever seen. And yes, adhesion issues. When I saw it years later, bare chrome.

curiousabe

Thanks! Judging from their facebook page a few of their frames do look pretty sweet! Only thing Im a bit worried about is paint chipping, I have an old De visini frame from the 80s in beauitful red cromovelato that has qyuie a few paint chips on the top tube and other place ;(





Awesome, thanks!

Dawes-man

At least as far back as 2009...

Kilroy1988 

Whatever Ciclo Barca has done with those two frames with orange paint in the photo you shared here is clearly the process you want to go with - that's a "cromovelato" finish if I've ever seen one. The paint chipping is an issue, but it rubbing away competely over time is probably a more serious concern!

I shared a photo of a Carlton and a Hetchins earlier in this thread with nice flamboyant finishes that were done similarly, and those bicycles are both over 70 years old now... So it also just comes down to how much you take care of them! The paint won't just disappear without a reason.

-Gregory

Dawes-man

As pointed out earlier in this thread, flamboyant is undercoated with silver paint (sometimes gold, I've heard but haven't seen). This 'holds' the top coat as any undercoat will and, yes, taken care of will last a very long time, as you say. Cromovelato, though, is a clear paint on a chromed surface, which doesn't hold the paint very well at all and it will lift here and there with time no matter how much you take care of them. Sometimes, the clear top coat will even wear off, like on the top tube of this old cromovelato Wilier I snapped in Italy back in 2012.

Kilroy1988 

If that's how it was done, which, after you saying so, sounds familiar, then the green headtube and the gold on the Magnum Opus I posted are actually outliers - the paint was clearly applied directly onto the chrome. The orange on my Carlton was a bit more dull so I get the silver paint thing, but the frame was in fact fully-chromed underneath, as evidenced by many chips that were in the paint.

As noted on the Hetchins website from the Magnum Opus:

"Second, the extraordinary gold-chrome finish is intact. This was achieved by fully chroming the frame first, then covering it with yellow-gold lacquer. "

TugaDude

There's a lot of examples in this thread, both good and bad, but in my opinion caution is always warranted in drawing conclusions based on specific examples. There are always going to be outliers, and those outliers can happen on either side of the equation, failure or success.

So many variables exist when it comes to coating things. it isn't fair to hold something up as proof that a process is flawed just because one example failed. And it is just as wrong to attribute success to a process because one example performed as anticipated.


One of the biggest lessons I've learned is to manage expectations and to make certain that an end user or owner has a clear understanding of what they're paying for. And that includes strengths and weaknesses, limitations and more.

To bring this back to bicycles, it seems clear to me that some things just don't seem to hold up over time. That doesn't mean they are bad, it just means that they have limitations and those limitations need to be taken into account. Everything, no matter what it is, has limitations and success or failure can result from whether those limitations are adhered to or ignored.