Butchering an old Pompino into a shiny fixed/front disk winter commuter

Thanks for the feedback folks, you may have just saved a life...

Think I've got some new/shit nitromors hanging around somewhere. I'll give that a go, plus I have a few wire brush drill bit ends that should help loosen things up.

I'm just a bit concerned that the paint survived the caustic pretty well and so will no doubt be a bugger to shift now...

This does sound like a lot less farting around but less chemically exciting.

It's a bit sad this next step will be it for chemicals. I'm looking round the house for bits of aluminium I could dissolve for fun now.

I'm sure someone on here had a technique for new nitromors. I think it involved leaving it sat around dissolving for a long time. Mild chemical excitement?

Having Nitromors'd a frame previously (with the old, good stuff), I'd not really bother to do it again. I'd pay someone to blast it or just sand the frame and spray paint over the top.

This ^

The final finish is all dependant on the preparation. I spent 4-5 days stripping paint with the new crappy Nitromors, sanding and finally painting. It was worth it.

dichloromethane:ethanol 5:2 ratio
Both can be bought in pharmacies as far as I can tell. Use a brush to apply, wear a mask & gloves. It dissolves paint within minutes.

There was a paint dissolver called "Kromofág" here in Hungary that had the same ratio of those two. They sold it for many many years until a few years ago they've decided to change the formula to something else—it's shit ever since.

pay someone to blast it

This. It's not worth the effort doing it yourself!

Paint stripper is time-consuming, messy and always gives disappointing results.

Have you thought about getting the frame powder coated? You're probably looking at £70 - £100 for blasting & powder coating a steel frame & fork.

Where? I thought most places were more than that.

Well, I had at it over the weekend. Old bottle of Nitromors was more effective than I thought. Did kinda three coats over about an hour and half, then went at it with one of these on the end of my drill.

Made pretty good progress considering I was mainly outside cowering from the rain under an old sail I rigged up as a tarp. I only managed to steal the odd 20-30 minute session with the drill/stripper around weekend dad duty, but I've done the whole of seat tube, top tube, stays and half the down tube. Another 30 minutes and I reckon I'll be nearly there. Pics to follow, maybe.

Also, as stated earlier in the thread, its no good coming at me with "you should pay this person to do y" or "you can get x done for just £y at this place I know".

Part of the fun of doing this project is that I'm doing it all. When it's finished i'll be like "see what I did. I did that" and it will make me feel warm and fuzzy on those cold winter commutes.

The paint stripping has so far cost me nothing. Wire drill bit was in the tool box, inherited from my late grandfather (thanks Mitch). The Nitromors was skulking at the back of the shed for maybe 7 years since I had to strip the paint off an old van.

Right, got most of the paint off. Just some tricky bits round the bb cluster left.

Think I'm gonna build it up raw like this, just to check how I like riding fixed with big tyres before I go ahead and zing the cable guides and canti studs off and paint it. Still thinking about paint too.

To get to that point, I need to build some wheels. Hope to get those started over the weekend.

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To get to that point, I need to build some wheels

It's often like that with bike projects. Good work with the paint!

One down....a front disk wheel. Got some £10 WTB SX19 rims from planet x. Laced to a wtb hub bought NOS from eBay for £12 £7 worth of spokes. Might get this thing rolling tomorrow....

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Aurum will blast and clear coat for £84. Additional colours are tenner or so each.
Subbed. Excellent project!

That is a class wheel jig! Your design?

Thanks. Not my design, it's from Roger Mussons excellent book on wheel building. You can download a free pdf with some googling.

Nothing quite like an evening with some tunes, a beer and 32 spokes to keep you entertained.

That is a class wheel jig! Your design?

I second this, very nice.

It lives!

Managed to throw it together in stolen moments throughout the weekend. Smoothest build I've ever experienced. Everything went on, and every time I needed a random thingemy jigger, there it was, right in the parts bin where I expected.

Highlights were grinding the crank bolts down from 2x to 1x spacing with the angle grinder. Lazy, but it worked. I had the angle grinder out all ready as I've whizzed off the canti hanger as a test for the other more critical bits that will depart next. Easy to nip off and then blend into the wish bone seatstay.

Fitting the £25 brand new disk brake. Everything you need in the box, adapter, screws, rotor, torx bolts. All with pre applied threadlock. Unreal value and it just works.

Digging out some old tubeless rim tape from the very depths of the part bin and it lasting exactly a whole turn on the wheel.

Favourite bodge- 5 Brazilian Centavos coins as bar end plugs. Perfect size!

Rear wheel is a donor from another bike. Still need to build the new rear which I'll try and get done in the next evening or too. Might be tricky though, as I try not to drink during the week and I've never built one without a beer.

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Things I need to do - shorten chain...its right at max on the drop outs. Also, shorten brake hose(scary as they're working perfectly at the mo).

Pleased with the fork. It's an alloy thing off eBay I picked up for £45 quid. NOS. My only reservation is it's clearly designed to blend nicely with a frame running an integrated headset, hence it looks a little chunky on the skinny headtube with FSA orbit headset.

I might file the crown down a little, try and get it to blend a little better. I need a new headset anyway, so may go with an FSA pig as the lower cup is oversized for bigger bearings. What does the hive mind think?

I think it looks great overall (looking forward to seeing the rear wheel brought in a bit) and the fork-headtube transition isn't bad at all

Needs china carbon disc fork. Possible imminent fiery death adds to the excitement and therefore is better.

Yeah, umm'ed and ahh'ed on that. You can only get carbon disk forks with a straight steerer in mountain bike flavour and the A2C on those is a little long. Plus no mudguards mounts also turned me off.

These alloy things weigh about the same as a carbon fork with steel steerer too, and I don't think I'm going to notice the difference in terms of ride harshness when I'm running 32c's.

No one will be able to tell when painted anyway...

PS. Thanks for the bars! They are on there now (a little narrow tbh but I'll see how I go...) I could increase the chance of firey death/excitement by replacing them with some £9 china carbon bars. I like my skin and teeth tho.

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