Hi All

leave her be. the paint will get chipped and shit anyway

But I need something looking shiny and new.. I read summat on here about cleaning up bars after taking off tape, but I can't find it now. Is fine wire wool ok to remove scratches? Anyone knows where a link to a previous discussion about this is? Sorry to regurgitate old stuff.

petrol, or parrafin

lighter fluid, ethanol, acetone

wheelset about £140-150... new.

SJS around £142, brick lane about £150/160

If you look closely the paint on mine as probably as kippered as yours - check out the big double chip in the fork, and every other tube is chipped or scratched. But I reckon having some original, retro decals is way better than a perfect paintjob.

PLUS - you'll cry if you chip it

PLUS - you might hate the way it rides, so build it up and ride it before you paint it

PLUS - if you decide you must paint it once you've built it and ridden it for a bit, it takes about five minutes to strip a FG bike down for a respray

PLUS - if you go for a fancy respray that takes a while, or (even better) a refurb, keeping the original transfers, you could buy a beater frame and migrate your bits onto that while your Eye-talin stallion is away.

Have we convinved you?

honestly.. who cares about paint??

my polo bike is worse ;) , even touched up with wrong coloured paint, but everyone likes it!

Having read other threads about powder coating, you need to leave it a long time to dry and harden propoerly (4 weeks). Dunno if that sways you at all.

My opinon is that your frame looks mighty pretty as is. Fatblokes looks wicked with the nice new wheels/tyres and bar tape -sure yours would too. Spend the £££ on some shiny new product instead.

Oh, and I will have some unwanted (& used) black Mavic CP22s laced into silver System X hubs by the end of the day if you're wanting some cheap wheels?

It's paint that needs to be left for 4 weeks, not powder-coating.. or have I got that wrong?
I built Vegemite up straight from the coaters (yeah dogs when I had room/time/tools/motivation) - finish was hard as fsck.

yeah powder coat is fine as it is heated/melted on!

Oops my bad. Still, you get the idea.

Don't worry I decided you guys were right last night! No paint job for me, I'm interested in those wheels though with the money saved Mouse. Give us a whisper...
Thanks for talking me out of it.

LONGWAYS !!!! coool gald you found a frame to fit your long legs!!! looks good mate dont respay it it has loads of charater just bling it up with parts!

nice one.

Wahey Rich! I'll scoot round the E.W. once I've fixed this rustbucket up...

Can anyone shed light on this crank for a young noob? They don't make 'em like this anymore! It has an Allen bolt on the side, which I've taken out. I don't know if it's now just a case of banging the crank off, and I don't want to damage it!

Help!

http://www.sheldonbrown.com/cotters.html

Eeek. Cotterpin cranks. No good for fixies - they will creak like hell, then possibly snap.

In terms of removal, I'd always advocate hitting it with a hammer.

yeah they usually fall off once you remove the bolt.

Ta, I'll get a hammer on it then.