RatNago to RadNago

So, first project thread on here. A friend has sold me a half-stripped Colnago Super Pista frameset built sometime in the 70's. Paint was a random team name so no great loss.

Frameset: Tomorrow I'll be taking it to a local powder coater. I'll basically be attempting to acquire the most ugly, guady colorway they can put together—think baby-poo green with sparkles or a candy coat or somethin. From there I'll paint in the pantographing, and potentially order some decals at some point if the mood strikes.

Wheelset: Air-Lite hubs to Mavic CXPs, which should be arriving in the mail today.

Drivetrain: bits I have laying around aka Suntour Superbe NJS cranks, some old atac pedals, cheapo shimano bb. Whatever I can find in the parts bin for chain/cog/lockring.

Cockpit: Sim Works stem, Deda bars, random 27.0 post, San Marco Regale black perforated. All stuff I acquired for other bikes that's now in my basement.

Anyhoo, I'll try to take pictures of some of this stuff as it comes in/changes, but I've wanted a Colnago pista for a long time, so I'm pretty hyped on this.

Pictures of the frame ?

Frame. Beat to shit paint-wise but otherwise seems solid.

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Can't wait to see gaudiness...

Even your plugs are shocked at the thought of powder coating a Colnago Super Pista ;)

lol

So, update: potentially less guady than hoped for. Need to call again this week but it turns out dealing with my local powder coating place is a pain in the rear and their selection… well, it leaves a lot to be desired.

That said: there's a semi-metallic weird-lookin bronze color that's pretty ugly and kinda cool at the same time, so I'll probably do that, see if I can tack on some sort of gold flake for something resembling a reasonable price, and when I get it back, fill the pantographing (probably with yellow) and potentially do some lug outlining as well. Probably put an old Fyxo Fauxnago decal on it to really seal the deal, and maybe order some actual colnago decals at some point as well.

Also as far as parts: found some 20c clinchers with gumwalls with orange tread that are likely to fit in the frame without rubbing, so I might grab those off the 'bay

You have an authentic colnago pista and you want to get it powdercoated and want to put on fauxnago decals? Why? p.s. if you do it for the lols, at least get some vrainago decals made.

No clue what vrainago is but I'm considering getting some custom vinyl made so: potentially open to this idea if it's good.

And yea, I got the frame for cheap, its beat up, I already have a pretty and nicely restored track frame, so it's time to get silly.

Sorry for the awful picture but: wheels are here! And they're pretty cool.

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Fair enough! Faux is fake in french and vrai is real. So you got the irony of calling it realnago/vrainago instead of colnago even though it's authentic.

Oooooh I am a stereotypical Yank in that I don't speak any language other than English lol. That would be pretty rad.

^^ this is a good idea

Have you considered getting it blasted then clearcoated by the powdercoater? Would retain a ratty/unique look without loosing the nice details under the coating ...

I have; unfortunately everything I've heard about that process is that it doesn't hold up all that great and would start rusting pretty quick. As I intend to actually ride this thing/lock it up/etc. I feel like that's a non-ideal solution. Plus the powder-coating place didn't have any cool sparkly clear-coats.

Why is powder coating so bad, doesn't damage the frame does it?

zoot, you'd have to blast off all the paint save the dt really, its not an artisanal process. you'd struggle finding someone to be diligent enough.

subbed

I'd guess its bad because some hypothetical future collector would have to re-strip and get a quality repaint to get its full value in the future. Idk, I actually ride my bikes so I don't care about its theoretical value to collectors /shrug

Awesome frame and i like the gaudy concept. I would echo what others have said about powder coating though, more often than not it gets laid on pretty thick and you may loose some of that lovely detailing. Also last time i checked you can't do touch ups if/once it starts cracking/flaking.

A wet spray in a fucking horrible colour would be far more sympathetic IMO!

I used to do plating, thats not great but could be far worse.
chrome is a pain anyway imo

I see your point re powder coat ruining detail tho, thats a real issue I hadn't considered.

Ye, if you know you won't sell it, you do you.

Its the same as blacking out logos no?

Don't paint the panto in contrast if it gets super filled up with powder coat tho, that will look shit. Not in an ironic way.

Yea, it might mess with the details. I'm not all that worried about it. If there were lots of lovely, inexpensive painting resources near enough for me to get to them without a car, things might be different. But I live in a mid-sized US city that's fantastically unfriendly to cycling, so cool stuff like custom painters who know their way around bikes is nonexistent.

And yea if the panto is all funky, it won't get painted in. And I blocked Saarf but I gather he's suggesting some type of chroming which again: I'm doin this on the cheap, for one, and even if I weren't, the resources don't exist where I live.

unfortunately wasn't able to get gold flake as it was looking like it would turn this thing into a $300+ powdercoating job, and that's just ridiculous. So weird industrial bronze color it is, and hopefully it'll have a lil subtle sparkle to it. Also found some ugly-ass old tires in my stash that go gumwall->red->black so I might throw those on for ugly rat points and an homage to everyone who builds up colnagos with colored everything for reasons only mamils can discern.

OH, I did think it looked more like when we 'chromed' plastic than metal, which was similar to that liquid stuff.
That was always gonna look shit loool sos

bun powder coating.
get cans

and I blocked saarf.

lmfao, what, you can block people? why?