How To Restore Old Paint On A Bicycle
It started with a rusty old bike a garage sale and a desire to start a new project.
How to restore old paint on a bicycle. For many people including myself the high cost of quality new bicycles is a discouragement so in this instructable i will show you how to take an old second hand bicycle and to clean. I have had two bikes which i found in the dumpster rubbish bin here in australia. Inspect your frame analyze the rust and make a decision. Consider the bicycle pictured above.
Cycling is a great way to exercise and to explore your area. Restore an old bicycle. However the biggest challenge will be determining whether the paint damage and oxidation to the top tube will mean having to re paint the frame something i am loathe to do. The old song goes the best things in life are free.
Some will argue with this method but i have had excellent results. First i use a 000 gray scotch brite pad soaked with wd 40 to gently scrubb the old paint. You don t have to paint but if you do it makes sense to paint the frame and forks before you get started on anything else. In this short video andy runs through in more detail the process he uses to clean and restore bicycle frames for the bikes that he restores.
Do this only if you are considering stripping and re painting your bike. Sitting in a rummage sale the old green schwinn was nothing remarkable except for the promise of how it could look when fully restored. If you end up doing a bicycle restoration that you re proud of and want to show off please consider sharing your story with bikesmarts. Discover how a janesville man fixed up a classic american bicycle.
If the paint damage is just at the surface level and there s no rust underneath i d like to preserve the beautiful patina of this nice reynolds 531 hand built frame. This bike was not the most expensive model sold under the mercury badge this year but it still sports a tank and rear carrier and some pretty cool paint. If you ll be satisfied with a simpler appearance an industrial refinishing shop or auto body shop can do excellent work at a lower cost. Professional bicycle framebuilders and refinishing shops do fancy multi color paint jobs and complete restorations even reproducing original decals striping and chrome.
It is a late 1930 s mercury boys bicycle. I am referring to paint which is faded chalky covered with surface rust etc. The overall condition of this bike is fair but at least all of the important expensive parts are present.