The first step is to remove all the old stickers. Since these are industrial graphic type stickers I chose mechanical stripping with a 3M red removal disc on the end of my chorded drill. The method worked very well on the soft aluminum frame. The disk doesn’t generate a lot of heat and it doesn’t cut into the metal. The disk just removes paint and the gooey stickers with ease. The process took around an hour to peal all the stickers off with no bike vise.
I cleaned the frame with warm soapy water and rinsed it with the hose. Drying was done with a soft cloth towel and an air compressor. I didn’t worry about masking off the bottom-bracket or headset as these will be chased before final assembly anyway.
The frame was hung and I started to spray the gold on the top tube and seat stays for the accents. As I started spraying the gold paint covered extremely well and it just popped. I couldn’t resist and I sprayed the whole thing in gold to see what it would look like. Wow what a color. I definitely will not keep it gold but it looks crazy! I’m going to mask off symmetrical stripes on the top tube, down tube, and seat stays. The dropouts will stay gold as well. The rest of the frame will go satin black with the lines buried under satin clear. The carbon fork will be hit with a shot of satin clear as well to take the shine off. I can’t wait to finish it off!
