Schweinhund

I've built rat rods and restomods but never restored one to original.
All these beautiful bicycles that have been resprayed and restickered.
I would like to make my Montana Comp look decent instead of faded and crappy. Where do I start?

Schweinhund

I know the obvious, disassembly but do I prep it, do I send it off to a remote person for paint, get paint codes and get someone local. Media blast or sand? those are my questions.

kunsunoke 

If it were my bike and it had sentimental value to me, I'd probably have the frameset powder-coated.

Start here - https://www.tiger-coatings.com/us-en/shop/

You will need to do some digging to find a powder coater in your area, preferably with a long history and a readily-available CV. They don't need to work with the Tiger Drylac line but they should have a good variety of coating chemistries and colorways available.

I've used these people before, with good results - https://www.facebook.com/kingcoatings/

Hondo6

Step 1: make sure you have a fat wallet.

Seriously - it depends.

If all you plan to do is have the frame refinished with new decals, then put the existing components back on that won't be too bad. And there are many approaches you can take for that, depending on the condition of the existing frame and paint.

But if you're doing a 100% restore to original, including original gear (less consumables, maybe), that might be a very different story. If there have been upgrades to the bike since day 1, finding excellent used or NOS versions of the originals may require serious cash - particularly if the original components were good ones. I recently saw a vintage used XTR hubset go at auction for around $190 on eBay.

Best of luck.

kunsunoke 

Potential decal source - https://www.velocals.com/k-1/

Schweinhund

the bike is 9/10ths original
Seat, tires and bars have been swapped out, but I still have the bars.
The only real problem it has is it sat in a garage window and the paint is faded badly

Kabuki12

For my one bike I had done professionally, I used Franklin Frame in Ohio. Jack did a great job and it was reasonable. I have also had another bike powder coated and bought the decals to put on myself. The one I did myself came out nice but not nearly as nice as the pro painted and clear coated bike.

Hondo6

If the installed components are in good shape, then this might not be too bad.

Dunno if you want to consider the seat a consumable. If not, finding an original seat might (or might not) be costly, depending on what "original" was.

I'll defer to to others with more experience in getting frames refinished on the best approach there. And if any of our resident frame builders happen to offer their opinion on what to do about refinishing (@gugie, @bulgie, others with the requisite expertise), IMO you should consider what they have to say on the subject.

merziac

You're asking a lot of the right questions IMO.

And as others have said, you have to decide for yourself on many of the sticking points to get there.

I take a long view on many of mine, being hard and fast on "original and correct" can be costly, time consuming and a project killer without an abundance of both as well as patience, experience and resources, there is always a shortfall somewhere critical.

I usually take a long view and when I get stuck I will go with poetic license and sympathetic workaround, sometimes as a place holder and sometimes as the final direction which can always change when a viable alternative presents itself as often happens.

I always try and use something that could have been in play before, during or even after the appropriate time period if also appropriately applicable.

I often take great inspiration from some things that I see have been "upgraded" despite being wacky, off the wall or just plain bizarre, some of them can provide great folly for a direction that may or may not have actually made sense at the time but were done anyway.

Schweinhund

Thats a restomod for you
I have a 1990 Rockhopper. that's been a work in progress for years.
But I have some original, low mileage bikes too. This is one of those. it's in great shape except it lived in a very sunny garage window for a few years.
The paint is faded and chipped horribly. But no dents or dings. I don't think I need anything but cables and elbow grease and a paint job.

Schweinhund

Soody

Do you actually like the current colourscheme?
I'd want to see it in person before saying but it is pretty garish.
You might get good results just cutting/polishing it if you do like it.

If you don't like it that much, i'd rec powdercoating a single bold colour rather than restoring it to original. And personally I wouldn't care about having 'correct' decals either.
Powdercoating can be a bad idea on road frames as you can lose sharp lugs and pantoing but with this it makes sense.
Had a good chat the other day with a bike painter i sold some stuff to, his work is pretty beautiful:
https://www.instagram.com/simonbittle/
He got a bit pissed off when i bought up powdercoating lol

Whatever you chose to do will be worth it because it's an awesome bike.

jasoninohio

Agree with the above, I'm not sure if wild 80s/90s colors are considered "patina" yet but this one looks decent enough for a nice refurb as is, like clean it up really nice and everything, but why do paint?

zandoval 

It appears you have done restorations before. With bicycles it is to what degree? There is "Refurbished", "Restored", and then this whole other category called "Wall Hanger". I would appear that some on this Forum take all this pretty seriously. All the way down to, did you use OEM cables for replacements. Then there are people like me that with some bikes the only thing original or of period is the frame... Ha

What ever the case it sounds like your in for some fun. Anyone who enjoys putting a Rat Rod together is bound to have a blast getting a favorite bike cleaned up like new.

And yes, that's another category... "Cleaned Up Like New"... fun, Fun, FUN!

Schweinhund

I've refurbished many many bikes, never restored one. This one is about the easiest in my collection to accomplish that.
Paint and stickers are my goal along with just cleaning up the rest of it.
I have a couple that only need refurbishing and one of those is coming up next

Schweinhund

I don't like the look of powdercoat, looks thick to me. The paint scheme is why I love that thing. not rare, but def. uncommon