mrv 

- probably sitting in the basement last winter, I'm thinking no coating would have been fine.....

Right - why the permatex paint on primer?
1) I had it on hand
2) I like the idea of applying a primer that converts surface rust to a protective layer (iron oxide to phosphor oxide? Not sure.... I'm sure the mighty might Google knows...)
3) I was expecting to get a smoother surface so I could sand and paint.

The problems I had / have:
1. lack of patience to use a brush paint of any kind. I really like to ride bikes, so my ability to fiddle with bikes is limited. Kind of, I like the IDEA of working on bikes more than the actual working on bikes.
2. The Pemratex gums up the sanding medium. So getting a smooth surface with it is a really bad idea for the impatient. I suspect it would make a good durable finish (not pretty...). I know it's really hard to remove it again!! ha! So if you had a commuter city bike frame you wanted to protect (and deter theft), and wanted to refinish, it might be worth a try.
3. I find brush paints lose lug sharpness. The lugs get kind of ..... rounded....

....and this is a bodge project, so there's keeping with the spirit of that.

bodge (verb) in British English
1. informal: to make a mess of; botch

2. Australian informal: to make or adjust in a false or clumsy way

mrv 

…well spray.bike calls it Royale.



i figure if I keep the pics poorly lit, I should be fine …


In the CV wrenching section some folks posted pics of nice spray jobs. Maybe if I try again I’ll ask them how they did that….maybe.
cheers!

mrv 

VeloCals applied. Also custom some stuff from lettering.com.

Clear next. Then thread chasing.

mrv 

....."Let me be clear...."

Decals on. Some from the VeloCals folks. Shout out to those folks when I almost ordered a blank decal. They emailed me and said, what is you want now? ... https://velocals.com/
And some custom lettering from Lettering.com https://lettering.com/ (seems like pretty good stuff to me.... take that for what it's worth!)

Here's some pics of the decals and the clear coated frames.
Also some brake pics. I struggled a bit to figure out how the Dia Compe springs work. But found this thread, which seemed incomplete. So I completed it. https://www.bikeforums.net/classic-v...rake-help.html

So that's it for the moment. I have a nice set of Ultegra hubs I'm going to use to build the wheels. Probably I'll take my time... right, more time... getting that done as I got to buy $100 worth of rims and $80 worth of spokes and then another $100 for tires and tubes. Man, definitely taking my time....
Here's the State of the Bodge (...also the seatpost, seat, bottom bracket are installed, just not in these pics. And the stem showed up yesterday and got spray painted flatte black.)







- velocals did not have the exact True Temper decal, but this was close enough (OH! DANG! you can see my lazy man surface prep around that water boss! Let that be a lesson to you)

- need to flip those black plastic bits to get them orientated correctly.


- Some comments on Spray.Bike Clear Coat
- this particular decal started to run from the clear coat. The instructions at Spray.Bike are get real close with the solid colors, like 2 ~ 4 inches https://spraybike.us/pages/frequently-asked-questions
- If you read the instructions way ahead of time, you forget this does NOT apply to the clear coat. The site tells you 8 inches. So if you forget, and get real close with the clear, it runs and since it runs, I think that's why the decal ink ran. Anyways, keep that in mind.... if y'all actually read this far.
-- Also, as I've read elsewhere, the Spray.Bike clear doesn't really give a high gloss. They say the second clear coat will be glossy. I'd say, more like, kind of a shiny sheen. But not glossy. So if you want high gloss, use something else for your clear. Everybody talk about 2k or something. I looked it up. Should have used that, I reckon.

What can I say.... The Bodge Abides!