Geoff Roberts Framebuilding course - first and second, and third frames. And fourth (now finished). And fifth.

I'd originally planned to spend the week in August I spent with Geoff doing a frame painting course with Cole Coatings, but I realised that I wouldn't have a frame ready in time to paint, so changed my plans. Painting this frame has confirmed that I really need to go on the Cole Coatings course though.

I've had two main problems with the paint. The scheme is mostly red and black (yep, sooooo original) with silver decals on the black bits and black decals on the red bits. I'd originally planned to use some chrome paint for the silver decals, as not only would it look most excellent but also the chrome paint goes over a black base, whereas the normal silver base paint I've got really needs a pale base to go over. I managed to comprehensively screw up doing all the decals, for two reasons:

1. Didn't follow the instructions for the chrome paint properly, and thought I could get away with some shortcuts. As usual, the shortcuts turned into very long cuts.
   
2. The vinyl I've been using for masks is too thick, I think, and keeps lifting at the edges on the tighter tube radiuseseses. Due to the paint schemes I've used before the decals are actually the base coat colour under the effects coat, so I've just had to do the letters in vinyl, stick them on, spray over them, and then remove the vinyl letters. This time I need to have vinyl masks with the letters cut out, which is proving harder to do well.
   
   

The result of these issues was that I ended up having to sand off the decals I'd done, redo the base coat, and then do the decals a second time. I gave up on the chrome paint and used silver, so had to do a white base coat over the black base, before doing the silver. Here's the last coat of silver on the 'BROMMERS' decal on the downtube.

Once I'd managed to do the base coats and decals then it was time for the clear coat, then flat back the coat coat and add a flowcoat, and then flat and polish the flowcoat. That's all done now. I'll add some more pictures of the painted frame and forks shortly.