Hello everybody. I am doing my first restore and thought I would document it here. The bike was actually my first race bike from when I was a junior. I found it in my parent’s crawlspace a few months ago and thought to myself, “This thing deserves better than to be in a crawlspace!” It is a Ciocc designer 1984. Is that even a model? I know it wasn’t a top of the line frame, but I managed to put about 35 thousand miles on it before I upgraded to an aluminum Guerciotti at some point. It had a hodge podge of mid range components on it that included mostly Shimano 600, but I pretty much destroyed most of that through my early years of racing. I picked up a bike on Craigslist with mostly 80’s record components and am in the process of cleaning that stuff up to used on this bike. They came off of a Diamant that I posted a thread about earlier. Anyway I sent the frame out to be striped and powder coated with the same color, but I had him add a pearl overcoat. I’m curious to see how that will turn out. Picking it up today actually and will post pics this weekend. Sent away for decals a few weeks ago, but have not received them yet. Anyway glad to be here and can’t wait to get this started. I’ve included pics of what the frame looked like before I sent it out. I really wish the frame had chrome dropouts and fork, but so is life.

I've read you. It's a great find. You already have a leg-up on it. It'll turn out fine. It's your size and you'll be riding it and enjoy it you will. Keep us posted, I'd like to see the P. Coating job in particular, the rest too. Ciocc made no infererior bikes that I know.

Yeah, I'd say it definitely deserves better than a crawlspace. Actually, I'd say it deserves a repaint instead of a powdercoat, but that's just me.

I don't have the money for a respray, so this is the best I can do at the time.

The idea that darkmagus has, though valid isn't the only choice , he himself indicates that as well. I never cared (knew of) for P. coating 'till recently. I've seen the end results & have been impressed. You're riding it for now, the bike needs help & you'll save plenty.

Well, I should also say that yeah, a powdercoat is definitely better than just letting it sit. I too have seen powdercoats that look great, and I'll be curious to see this one. I really have no room to talk, I couldn't afford either one at this time.

If the paint and rust removal is done properly and the frame/fork are dipped/phosphated before powder it can be super durable. If the application is not heavy handed and the threading and bearing surfaces are masked properly it can be really beautiful also.

Make sure to show us the after pics!

vjp

I asked them about the prep process and they did actually mention everything you just said. They dipped it and all that jazz. My wife just picked it up and sent me a picture of the frame. Can't see any of the details in it and the light is bad so I have no opinion yet. I will take some pics outside when I get home. By the way it cost me $100 for the blue color and $50 for the pearl to be added. I guess they bake it twice once for the color and one for the pearl. Here's the pic

From the pic it looks really nice! BB threads are clear so it looks like they know what they are doing.

vjp

Looks nice. Can't wait to see it all built up. The only thing I left in my parent's crawlspace was a empty bottle of booze...

Here are some pics in better light. It turned out pretty nice. I threw a headset on it and the wife started painting in the pantographs before I even got home. One nice thing about powder coat is if you paint in your pantographs and mess up you can wipe it out with paint thinner and start over. It doesn't seem to do anything to the powder coat. Overall I like it, but there are a few thing I don't like. One is when they plugged up the seat tube, the powder didn't stick smoothly at the top of the lug. You can see this in the pics. There is also a little orange peel (pic 13) on the underside of the down tube. Other than that it turned out really nice.




















Orange peel in above pic

Wow. That looks great!

Look up Cyclomodo (spelling?) on eBay for very, very accurate reproduction decals.

If you do it will look just like mine!

Already done. Should be here any day now

looks nice. one thing they should have done is masked the shift lever bosses: that thick PC is going to have to come off for most any levers to work smoothly.
One PCer I used didn't hesitate to take back a fork and re-do it when I looked just slightly disappointed in the finish...I wasn't going to make a fuss (since the frame was a flipper) but the shop owner said words to the effect of: "we can blast and shoot this again faster than arguing with any customer". And the second pass was much better. If you really aren't satisfied with the orange peel and the seat lug, you could try for a re-do.

a little orange peel, a run or two...just like the original Italian paint!

mmmmm, autentico.

:lolsps:

The decals came today! It looks 100x better than I thought it would. I'm debating now whether or not to have it clear coated. I am thinking I probably should. Can you clear over powder coating?

Whoo-hah, looks awesome! I actually did a near-alike Ciocc restore that I finished last year in a powder-blue powder coat. Decals from Cyclomondo, but I stopped short of clearcoating, so I'm curious to know what you might find out if you pursue it.

Just a heads-up: you're going to have to do some surgery on the shifter bosses to get the shifter stops to sit right. When I did it I first cut with an xacto at the limits of where I wanted to remove the 'paint' so it would tear out past that point.

Looks awesome and I love the pearl. Wish I'd done that.

Thanks for the advice. I had the shift bosses coated because at first I wasn't going to restore it. I was going to use it as my winter fixie. But after I dropped it off I found this forum and changed my mind. Kind of funny how those things work out.

Wow... that looks great. I'm going to have to find a 'newer' frame like that. I love the more recent Ciöcc graphics. For my early 70's restore, I am trying to get authentic graphics from the period which I don't think were seen too much in the States.

One thing that bothers me (just a little bit) is how registration on these reproduced graphics is slightly off. You can see on the headtube how the white goes past the black outline of the big clover. Funnier though is that it's pretty much like the originals... they did that too!

Nice-looking Ciöcc though!

That bike looks great !

I retract any previous negative statement. That looks great! I think the pearl adds a perfect touch. Are those decals water transfers or peel and stick? Either way it looks like you did an excellent job of applying them.

I bought them from cyclomondo on ebay. They are very nice. This guy has created a nice little niche for himself. The decals are very nice, but they are not perfect. The lettering on the back of the seat tube is larger than the original and the lettering on the rear triangle is too large as well. I should have taken pictures along the way, because there is definitely a technique to doing this. Some of them were regular peel and stick (head badge, Columbus, and world) others water transfer. It was relatively painless to do the peal and stick. You can use a little soapy water with them. Get the area wet and you can then slide the sticker around until it is positioned. Leave it for a few hours and it is stuck. I can't imagine doing this dry. I don't have those kind of mad skills.

The lettering is a different kind of decal though. They are a water transfer decals but they are held in place by a clear backing that is used to keep them on the frame until they stick. Problem is once the frame is wet, the clear backing doesn't like to stick to the frame, so I used that blue painters tape. It worked perfect. So you wet the area, apply the decals, wrap it in blue tape, and let it sit for about 3 or 4 hours. They recommend 2, but it didn't seem to be enough. Then you carefully remove the tape and backing and your done. Most of the decals stuck. Some of them had a corner here or there that had to be carefully removed. So I smoothed everything out, coated everything with another coat of water and let it dry again. Seems to have worked pretty well. I really feel like it needs a clear coat though. Have to see if that's in the budget. Might be able to get the painter at work to do it. I'm a teacher and we have a paint booth somewhere, but I don't know those guys very well. We'll see.

I've read where Spectrum Powderwork's clears over decals so obviously it can be done. Normally you should scuff up the surface of the paint with some 1000 grit sandpaper or a gray scotchbrite pad before clearing though, which will be difficult now that the decals are already applied.