Ready for Paint

Exactly a month after I finished Doug's class, and very appropriately on Labour Day, Niles — the frame I built there — is ready for paint.

It took me about a week of filing work on the lugs to be happy with them. This was, I think, an absurdly long time. Were I to do it again, I'm sure it would take me about a quarter the time — both because I know what I'm doing, and I would insist on less perfection. (Really, the more you file, the more you need to correct — so it ends up looking more or less the same after a certain point, I think.)

The last day or two have been spent very pleasantly doing things like cutting the seatpost slot, filing off any rough spots on the braze-ons, and removing any excess silver. The frame is now very clean. There are a few spots empty of silver at lug points, and at the seat lug some silver was drawn away from the tube joint when I attached the stays. Noah and some Bondo will hopefully take care of this. Also: looking at these photos has made me realize that I still have some emory-ing to do in certain spots to remove some file marks. But I am very pleased with things now and very excited to see it painted and built up!

As for paint and decals — I will paint in a darkish grey-blue, use dark blue decals, and have (very thin) box lining. On the seat tube, I've decided to revert to my somewhat dorky original bell/top logo with my name written in it. On the headtube, a stainless steel headbadge. In the photos below, you can see these decals in the spots they'll be. (I've enjoyed the decal creation stuff just about as much as designing and building the frame. I wonder if frame #4,001 would be as fun as #1, however. If I could design new decals for every bike, a new name for the decals, a radically new geometry, perhaps...)

So now it's off to Noah at Velocolour. I'm not sure how long it will take, but, ah!, it will feel like a long time regardless!

Here are lots and lots of photos: