Originally Posted by
chip.hedler
At what point, and in what form are the graphics applied? I'm refurbishing an early-60s-vintage Geminiani and am leaning toward some custom graphics.
The student frames I posted, the graphics were done with painting masks. Typically the lettering color was painted 1st and then covered with a mask and they the frame's primary color was painted 2nd. The process could be reversed depending on the paint we used. Some kinds of paint are thicker (especially candies) so whichever paint had the most thickness would be applied 1st and masked and the thinner paint would be applied 2nd. The Trillium paint job was very complex. It took as much work as it takes to make a simple frame.
When doing classic repaints, the process is completely different. I get dry transfer decals from SSSink that has a huge library of classic bicycle brands. These are typically applied after all the color paint work is done. Then multiple layers of clear are put over any of the decals methods and sanded smooth (probably in several stages) before the final clears are applied. A really nice wet paint job with multiple colors is a huge amount of work.