Saturday, May 28, 2011

The Post Tuna Sandwich Report

Boy that sandwich nearly paralyzed me.
I was stuck on the couch for a while, watching Law & Order, thinking about how to waste a completely wonderful day.
I don't like to waste completely wonderful days, but it's pretty easy to do.
So I got off the couch and began to take the Bike With The Funny Name apart.
I didn't want to do it cause I just got all in one piece so taking it apart felt like I was going backwards or something.
Once I got it all nekkid, I took it out to the Flat Tire Paint Shop to stare at it some more:



Where to begin?
The good thing about this frame was that none of the rust was in hard to reach places like where the lugs are.
Most of the rust was easily reached.
I started off with some 220 grit sandpaper but that soon changed.
On the chain stay, the rust looked bad:



Just plain sandpaper would take me like forever.
This was going to need some industrial strength high revolution electro powered help:



Into the bench vise the frame went and out came the Dremel.
At the thirty thousand RPMs, the rust and decals didn't have a chance.
Buzz, buzz, buzz, and some sanding, sanding, sanding, and about an hour later it was ready to be prepped.
This frame is not in good shape.
The top tubes and the bottom tube have been dinged up, really slight dings that you can feel only when sanding it smooth.
One of the rear drop outs has a bad weld, nothing I can do about that.
I admit I stopped my usual five star prep when I found these flaws.
The frame only got a three and half star prep.
The stem is still stuck in there so I just did my best to tape up the headset area and the brake and reflecto thingys.
It was pretty windy today, so the paint didn't come out that well.
Still, it looks better than it did before.
I'll let it sit a bit more before putting it all back together.
I guess now I gotta polish up some stuff so that it at least looks decent.
Huh?
What color did I paint it?
Okay, here's a sneak preview:

2 comments:

John Romeo Alpha said...

It appears to be pickle-colored, or maybe sour cream and onion potato chip colored.

Anonymous said...

I was thinking about pickle.