Ray,
I agree with you. We have, on rare occasion, however applied a clear to preserve severely oxidized decals and striping that would not have not withstood the rubbing of a wax application. We used a thin satin clear and were able to protect and bring out the colors a bit, but the effect was not a glossy, coated look.
In most situations wax would be best.
Jim Cunningham CyclArtist Vista,CA
-----Original Message----- From: classicrendezvous-bounces@bikelist.org [mailto:classicrendezvous-bounces@bikelist.org] On Behalf Of wheelman@nac.net Sent: Wednesday, January 21, 2004 7:08 PM To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org Subject: [CR]Clear Coating to preserve Patina
Wow! where do I start on this one. Clear coat to protect patina. To me that is like taking the Mona Lisa and covering it with some clear Krylon. I understand the desire to preserve things they way they are but clear coating is not always a good answer. I have done some amatuer furniture refinishing and I can tell you one thing. If you were to clear coat a good piece of furniture to preserve the patina you just reduced it value to one tenth of its original. Now here comes my personal preference, a good wax job with a good quality wax beats clear coat every time. Yes it is more work and has to be done more frequently but it does preserve the bike patina without putting a permanent polyurathane condom over it. Now I have a few bikes with clear coat and here is one thing that does not get discussed. Clear coat over older and newer paint looks good for a time. After riding a bike with this treatment for a while you begin to notice blistering where you may have kicked up a stone. Right now I have a beautiful metallic forest green frame with a clear coat and it has this darn half inch blister that just looks awful. This was a factory clear coat treatment. The base color paint is just fine but the clear coat just lifted in that one spot. I am also not a big fan of the wet look paint job. I know Imron is the preferred paint today but give me that old enamel or lacquer any day. Probably the worst thing I have ever seen is a circa 1915 bike restored and painted with Imron black. It just looked awful like it was caught in a time warp.
Ray Homiski
Elizabeth, NJ