Re: [CR] {CR} motobecane le champion 1972: paint or powdercoat, or leave it be?

(Example: Framebuilders:Doug Fattic)

To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2011 17:56:08 -0800 (PST)
From: donald gillies <gillies@ece.ubc.ca>
Subject: Re: [CR] {CR} motobecane le champion 1972: paint or powdercoat, or leave it be?


I should say that the 77 CARLTON Pro I retouched had 100 "spider-veins" all along the top tube (see the original downtube photo for an idea of how it looked), you know, from an athelete who has molecular acid for sweat, and the tops of the forks were also badly rusted, and there was a 3" patch of bare metal near the shifter mount area.

I unfortunately failed to photograph those aspects of the bike before I repainted it - only the ebay photos are in the URL. So my bike was probably in far worse shape than your Motobecane.

http://www.ece.ubc.ca/~gillies/raleigh/international/Carlton77.html

I managed to find a complete set of original transfers before I did the overspray, but I'm saving those for 5 or 20 years from now when the bike is truly ready for new paint. It's nowhere near needing new paint right now, and the thought, "Let's just see how good I can make it look, I can always repaint it later" kept me going happily on this overspray project.

- Don Gillies
San Diego, cA, USA