Thursday, June 17, 2010

False Alarm

Sanding, sanding, sanding.
I'm looking a little pale today.
Thank goodness Gary is white.
The ugly part of Gary was the seat tube/top tube junction and the bottom bracket area so I attacked those areas first:



Mostly surface rust so it was not hard to clean it up.
I just used sandpaper and some Dremel magic:



I'm not too worried about surface rust, mostly the spots that could pit the metal.
More on that later.
So anyways I start going over the rest of the frame and !
WTF!!



That's on the seat tube near the bottom bracket!
I inspect further.
It appears to be a seam that has been filled.
Okay, that's not a crack.
This is a crack:



There's no mistaking that one.
Now I'm pretty bummed out.
I mean I just spent the better part of two hours working on Gary only to find this on the chain stay.
Boy, it looks pretty bad.
Well, what have I got to lose?
I get out the Dremel, put on one of those round sanding thingys and go at it.
I figured if it was a crack, if I removed any more metal it would show.
I ground it down and:



Oh yeah baby!
Seems it was just maybe some imperfections in the steel.
Hopefully.
I gotta go over the frame one more time to prep it.
Here it is all nekkid:



I'm off the hardware store to find me some paint.
Maybe fluorescent green?
Safety yellow?
Actually just some primer and tape for the new bottom bracket won't be here for a week.
I also got to find me some Gary Fisher stickers.
At least the frame is good to go.
That was some false alarm.

2 comments:

John Romeo Alpha said...

Gary's looking good. Interested in your color choice(s). Current Vegas odds are running pretty good for "clay colored".

limom said...

Got a look at the available palette at the hardware store.
Think tropical.
Maybe.