Bicycle Restorations

After spending the best part of two hours cleaning up all the overspray from the primer coats, I decided I would wait for a calm day where I could spray outside.  Today, perhaps one of the hottest days there wasn't a breath of wind, so decided I would go for it... BEFORE AFTER So the paint from spray.bike was a good idea and I didn't get any runs, which was a real bonus, however, not sure if it was my spraying technique or the heat, the finish was a real matt finish with a texture like fine sandpaper. I did read that after 30 minutes you can flatten the finish with parchment paper, but I think this is where the heat was against me in that the paint had gone off really quickly. To resolve this, I wet sanded and flattened the paint.  So although I now have a smooth paint, it is a bit patchy.  Looks like I will give this another coat, in the garage, this time making sure I cover EVERYTHING up with dust sheets...

Spent the weekend spraying two coats of primer on the bike, I still have a tendency to either spray too quickly and end up covering the garage more than the metalwork, or, spray too slowly and end up with some runs in the paint.  That was easy to resolve with a light wet sanding, but yet to find the balance between the two. I am hoping that for the top coat I won't have this issue, I have found a paint from spray.bike  that sprays on like a powder coat, but dries like a traditional rattle can.  The results I have seen across the internet are impressive, so hoping that this helps with the final finish.  Anyway, here are the results from the primer coat:

So after lots of work and an average job of using body filler, I am happy that I eventually got the frame into a condition that it's ready for priming.  I know it won't be perfectly smooth, there will be some smaller dimples, but once it's all painted up, I hope the eye will be focusing elsewhere on the bike.