GaryBingo

Morning everyone,

My dad recently handed me down his old 80's Peugeot. The lettering is starting to go. Basically what I was hoping to do was strip it down, clean it (gently) then cover the frame in clearmax (which folks on here seem to recommend). I don't necessarily want everything to be perfect (otherwise I'd have changed out some of the more rusted components rather than just redoing the cabling and bar tape). I just want to be able to keep the spirit of the bike without all the lettering and detail flaking off. Is it possible to just spray clearmax over the top of this? And are there any tips for a first timer? Any help is much appreciated. Thanks, Gary

Andrew R Stewart 

"I was hoping to do was strip it down" Meaning removing the paint down to bare metal or are you talking about removing the parts from the frame? Huge difference.

Most all paints really want a primer applied first to best insure both the paint coat adhering well and to reduce the future rust. Cleat paint is still paint. Clear applied to bare metal won't hold up anywhere near as well as if there was primer applied first. Many who do this experience fingers of rust over time. Usually these rust trails start at a braze on, sharp corners (where paint thickness tends to be less) or where a chip has happened.

If you're talking about clearing over the OEM paint and possible decals than compatibility between the paints is the first concern. Next up will be producing a surface that the clear likes to bond to. A slight scuffing of the OEM paint is the usual way to achieve this. If the decals are retained and they have large surface area the clear might not bond well to them. Additionally the clear might not be compatible with the decal material. Most any production bike from the 1980s didn't have a clear coat so the decals didn't need to be agreeable to the missing clear coat.

My experience with home refinishing jobs is that most are poorly done and suffer from wear and exposure to water far more than any OEM did and soon look worse than the old condition of that OEM finish.

My best tips are to rethink your goals and if you must refinish the frame test your products on areas not easily seen or on areas that you can clean off the test application. Practice of other stuff before pointing any spray gun at your frame. Andy

GaryBingo

Thanks R Stewart, that's really helpful. And yes, I should have been clearer, when I said "strip down" I meant removing all the components - my intention is to keep the OEM paint and decals and put a protective layer of clear over the top. Maybe there is a better way to do what I'm trying to do? Essentially I don't want the Peugeot lettering and other decorations to rub off when teh bike is handled or ridden (which is what's currently happening with the gold Peugeot lettering). (I would have posted a picture but apparantly you can't post pics in your first ten posts on this forum)

Andrew R Stewart 

Do you know what decal material is used? Foils and thicker vinyls tend to have edges that are not conducive to clear coating, The edges being thick are likely to have uneven clear thickness and not willingly be sealed within the clear coat.

Have you tried to find replacement decals yet? I might suggest this to know of all your options for plan Bs... Andy

smontanaro 

Warning, not a frame painter...

You might consider a coat or two of your basic automotive wax as a preservative...

I am slowly working on a mid-50s Automoto Champion du Monde frame that is, shall we say, full of patina. At one point it was stolen (mid-60s?) and rattle can sprayed black. A lot of that had been scraped off, but much remained, and it has lots of bare metal. The original decals are mostly just ghosts of their original selves. I carefully scraped off a bunch more black paint, dipped it in an oxalic acid bath to remove rust, then scraped off more black. As a preservative, all I did was apply a coat of wax. That's held up so far (admittedly just hanging in my basement), but it will get more wax before I go much further.



One detail shot:



vs

√

RB1-luvr

I could be wrong about this, but I think I've seen boiled linseed oil brushed on to preserve patina'd finishes?

Doug Fattic 

I put 2 House of Kolor clear coats over an old Chicago made Schwinn for one of my friends. I usually put on 2 final coats on most paint jobs. I put in a gloss cutting additive so it didn't have as shinny a finish. The picture makes it look shinier then it really is. Most polyurethane finishes are really shinny. It this case my friend was trying to impress some girl that was just going to use this bicycle to get around so we weren't worried about getting a perfect show finish. To the OP, I'm a pro builder and painter so I have all the right equipment and paints. I think my friend called our paint job new retro or something similar. I liked the way it came out. It was obviously an old paint job with plenty of scratches and blemishes and yet it had a new appearance too. The clears really freshened it up.

We prepared the surface with Scotch Brite. This roughens the surface a bit so that the clear can better stick to the surface. This worked better than sandpaper because it doesn't remove high spots that would take off the tops of the decals if we we used sandpaper. My friend got a little aggressive with cleaner and it melted some of the white decals.

A new clear coat over an old paint job

t2p

also recommend scuffing the frame with Scotchbrite (mild stuff)

probably a good idea to first go over the frame with a wax/grease remover ... prepsol ... (?) ... whatever ... whatever the body shops / painters use these days

( test over decals and stickers first )

GaryBingo

Thanks everyone, this has all been super useful. I'll let you know how I get on (and thanks for the pic of the Schwinn - it looks superb)