aballas

lol whatthebump? haven't gotten around to painting it yet....finals week is next week...might try for the week after that....

aballas

Got thse first days worth of painting done on the frame yesterday...

that involved stripping everything down, sanding w/ 400 grit sandpaper to prime the original paint, and then taping off the BB shell and headset cups....

Thanks to BF member cslone for suggesting the base color....

Krylon Camoflage Ultra-Flat Black....completely non-reflective...exactly what I was looking for....

tough as nails too....dont think I could chip it if I tried....



Here's what the semi-finished product looks like....





For the next part...I needed a little bit of creativity to come up with a good stencil material....

after a trip to walmart I came back with this:

Decorative wallpaper border....the kind that you can remove and restick over and over....like a vinyl sticker...worked perfectly...

The Font I chose for the lettering was Copperplate Gothic Bold in 180pt for the downtube and 64 pt for the model name on the top-tube

Letters printed out:



making sure it's the size i want..



starting to cut the stencil



stencil's all done...



stencil's applied...



everything so far...




Later on today I'll paint the lettering...the paint i chose for that is gloss-black engine enamel....should be tough as nails...





more pics will come later...

diff_lock2

DAMN thats hot.

Waiting to see the next steps...

aballas

thanks

should have new pics this evening...

alumrock12

way nicer than the stock gloss black

Terrapin Ben

wow! pretty darn sweet. are you going to clear coat it too?

aballas

no...i'm just going to leave it like that....might clear coat the lettering though...we'll see....just got done painting the lettering...

diff_lock2

waiting for pics lol (gtg sleep)

aballas

well...bad news...no pics tonight...lettering had diastrous consequences....the paint i chose melted the paint underneath causing bubbling....

so...back to the store...and back to square one...need to strip it down and respray the base coat... and get a different paint for the lettering...

dissappointing b/c it was so nice yesterday only to get ruined today....oh well...

it will turn out how I want it eventually...

schnee

I say do it up without any lettering at all. Stealth.

Jameson

You know, I was reading this, scrolling down to type "do not use enamel over lacquer, it melts the lacquer, but i see you found that out. The bike was looking good. I recommend stripping the main triangle and starting a fresh. By the way, you can spray lacquer over enamel all the live long day to no ill effects. I suggest a repaint because your over spray will mess up the non damaged tubes. There is a re coat window with most paints. After the curing process has started any over spray will be rough. Being flat black will minimize this greatly but it will still happen. Water born lacquers(commonly found in newer homes on wood work) and some other lacquers can be resprayed after full cure. It melts the top layer of finish and blends in. Read the back of your can, find a color with matching cleaning agent. Lacquer thinner, paint thinner, denatured alcohol, or some funny chemicals that I'd have to go look in my garage to spell properly are types of cleaners or thinners. If in doubt stick with matching product, enamel on enamel and lacquer with lacquer. Mixing paints can be fun if you have a small bit of knowledge. Your tough as nails non chipping theory is unfortunately wrong. It will chip and much easier than the original finish. Lacquer, especially the type used in spray paints is weaker than spray enamel in the hardness game. Even enamel though chips easier than a factory finish. Part of this is due to paint type part is the addition of hardeners and some is because the frames are cured with heat. Baking the finish to a hardness unreachable by mere mortal spray cans. Also know that engine enamel is designed to resist heat better than, oh say, your uncle Jim's leftover house paint. If you want to take a blow torch to you frame for any reason, you'll be a little better off than most but don't expect it to be a nail. Nails are hard because they are designed to be beaten through a solid object, you paint just deals with heat better. In order to maximize your spray paints shiny unblemished coat, let that mother cure for at least 5 days be fore attempting to put the bike together. It is not unheard of for rattle can paint to take much longer to fully cure. You will be able to touch the paint waaaay before this but it might not be fully dry/hard/cured.

sabaka

dude, that sucks...all that work for nothing!

it was looking good before the lettering, though

aballas

got everything redone.....looks really good...I'm happy with it...

pea3698

I think the paint scheme is sexy as all get out. I would have played a bit more with the font choices but that's just me . I am going to be repainting a GT frame soon and plan to have some fun with it.
Here is what I am saying about fonts. But there are so many it is hard to choose most of the time. I am also a graphic designer so have a butt load to choose from.

TheFlip

How would you propose painting/stenciling the interior embellishments of those first two fonts? I guess you could paint it out by hand, but then it wouldn't look as slick.

aballas

that would be nice....but the stencils were hand-cut with an x-acto knife....that meant i needed something simple that still looked good

born2bahick

OK I admit it! I was a disbeleiver, but I gotta say that it looks cool!

idleuser

Wow that looks just like I had imagined it. Great job!

aballas

here's what it looked like after it's inaugural ride yesterday...cleaned up nice though...paint's still flawless...

pea3698

Yeah It would have involved another step with a separate stencil for the different color. I hear you. Over the top I know.

Flak

+1

Hopefully the trails won destory the lettering

MattP.

Looks good!

aballas

survived the first rough day....I was impressed...hopfully lasts many more...

mtnbiker66

It's always cool when you do the work for yourself. Nice.