1991 Klein Pinnacle (finished on page 25)

Monkeyshred is more honest than the oldshovel. I like his stuff, but generally tend to stay away from YouTuber's as I live in an echochamber and will only hear myself. (just kidding)

Glad it was cheaper, Montana definitely is superior to spray.bike. Spray.bike is formulated as a grafitti paint but their own branding etc makes it cost a fortune, and also the fact that they're not aiming it at a large market, they WANT it to be bicycle specific, because they know that's where mucho dolares are made. I've been in touch with the founders of Spray.bike and they seem like nice folks but the customer service is eeeeeeeeeeehhhhhhhhhhh and they seemed kind of clueless to be honest.

Montana is well established and has such a lovely colour selection. Do you get German Montana in CA? Like the Gold line?

I found that with montana, light coats, let it dry a bit, light coat, wet sand in between layers as required - get it super smooth. Then varnish. I'd stick with their varnish, but if you want to splurge on something else then proper expensive 2k automotive clears will do the job. Depends on how Klein-like you want the whole thing.
All four cans are from the gold line, univ. primer, shock white (recommended under fluorescents) & ACID green (fluro)

I'm planning on leaving a day between all coats, taking my time, thanks for the advice light coats, etc 👍
 
All four cans are from the gold line, univ. primer, shock white (recommended under fluorescents) & ACID green (fluro)

I'm planning on leaving a day between all coats, taking my time, thanks for the advice light coats, etc 👍
Yes, gold line is great. German Montana I believe. I used the metal primer but went with darker colours myself, and I felt it suited it better. The metal primer has the most lovely red tint.. Kind of want to do a build with the metal primer only one day.

And yeah a day sounds good, it's touch dry in almost no time and work dry in just a couple of hours. For the very best results I reckon a good 12 hours of drying time, then wet sand, then another coat, 12 hours, wet sand, final coat and then clear. That should do the trick. You'll have to wet sand problem areas like around BB and chainstays, seat tube and chainstays, insides of stays a fair bit more than the rest as those are prone to overspray.
 
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My experience with Montana Gold fluoro:

No problems with application (I used primer, white, then fluoro red), just the usual 20-30cm distance while spraying. I waited 10 Mins between each coat, no adverse reactions. Two paint coats (one light, one thick) were sufficient and I could lay on the second coat quite heavily. I did not sand between coats, wasn´t necessary.

My understanding is that all Montana fluoro paints are matte, so you need a clear coat for a high gloss finish. In my test I just used a generic 1K can I had lying around. No adverse reactions and with more finishing coats I´m sure a nice and shiny surface would have been possible. For UV protection (important for fluoro paints) I will however use 2K clear .

Only real negative is chip resistance, but I´ve yet to see 1K paint that really is durable. No idea if the supposedly more durable 2K clear would change this, as it was chipping right from the bare metal in my "mishandling". Can´t exclude user error also, but I thought I prepped the test piece thoroughly.

The fan type nozzle/spray head produced a lot of waste paint. As the paint has enormous solid content what didn´t end on the test piece, landed as dust everywhere in the vicinity. So mask your work area. But covarage is therefore excellent, so much so that I couldnt tell where I was using grey primer, white or yellow undercoat for the test.

So did I use it then to spray the "real" thing? Sadly no, paint match was just not good enough for me.

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Hey @Dr Dremel thanks for the input. The Monkeyshred guy had the same concerns with Montana's fluro red offering. In his video painting his Marin I would agree its not the best fluro red.

Seeing your post this morning pushed me to bump up my own sample testing on a piece of pipe. Standard primer (I easily drained the Montana primer last night on the frame, it went very well though), Shock White, Acid Green & Montana's glossy varnish.

Have to say I'm relived and happy with how it'll come out. Green could be a bit more vibrant but it meets my standards of pickyness 😁.

Oh, and it's smooth just like paint should look ;)

I may pick up a second Acid green before laying down that coat though, don't want any risk of it being thin.

Some indoor and early morning outdoor shots:
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Man that looks really good! Glad this works now for you, but seeing your efforts on the fork I had no doubts. Turns out vandalism technology has come a long way;)
 
So how's the frame painting going? It's going...

It's not going as smooth as the painted pipe colour sample shown the other day but I didn't expect it would, its a large frame with lot's of nooks and crannies.

As @Imlack mentioned (and I have known going in) it unfortunately shares a bit of traits with spray.bike. The primer went on nice but very thin, good enough to "prime" though. The shock white application is where these similar traits started to rear their ugliness. Thankfully about 10% as badly as spray.bike.

I wet sanded the shock white the next day and achieved acceptable smoothness though. Now on to the Acid (fluro) green.

Much, much harder to avoid crusty sandpaper sections. I tried the light coats approach but upon returning after the first light coat was dry I noticed parts of the previous coat did not even adhere. They were like green dust just sitting on top of the top tube.

I resolved to just lay it on thicker, achieve full coverage and hope wet sanding the next day would set things straight. Well that wet sanding of the green was this morning, unfortunately the process takes off most of the color to get rid of the sandpaper texture. Fortunately I picked up a second can of green yesterday and had enough paint to fully cover the frame again today, this time with the frame positioned head tube straight up. The previous attempt had the frame level (which is how I normally paint, top tube at highest point).

So basically the wet sand tomorrow determines if I move forward or abandon the Montana path. If I have far less bare patches meaning paint is actually sticking I'll pick up a third can and continue the course. I really like the color.
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If I re-live the wet sanding experience I had this morning? Maybe change colour? Not sure. Come hell or high water this frame is getting a paint job worthy of the effort put in so far 💪
 
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