Having dabbled in a few part-restorations and fixing up a few pub bikes, I'm finally doing my first bare frame build.
I've picked the brains of many on here who have provided invaluable advice before starting this project, so thank you..I may well need more Retrobike knowledge on my journey!
I bought a Trek 8300 from here a while ago and have started to make progress. It's a '93 (only year it was made, I believe)
The bike originally came specced with the Suntour Expert groupset but I fancied a slight upgrade. I'm going for XC Pro but haven't managed to source all the bits so, for the moment, I'll proceed with mostly XC pro and a few XC comp bits until (if I ever!) find what I need.
I started the build by checking the carbon tubes as best as could with a camera and no cracks. Phew!
Instead of the flouro or purple route of 8700 and 8900's I wanted to polish the frame. It was my first attempt at polishing aluminium, and I won't be doing it again in a hurry!
Having taped off the carbon tubing, I went about stripping the grey paint from the headtube, rearstays, and bb area etc. I mainly used 250, 400, 800, 1200 and then 2500 wet and dry paper and used a dremel in the harder to reach places, finishing again by hand. The primer on these frames was no joke and took some serious elbow grease to shift.
It's not perfect, but I'm pretty happy with the result for now.
Before:
I've picked the brains of many on here who have provided invaluable advice before starting this project, so thank you..I may well need more Retrobike knowledge on my journey!
I bought a Trek 8300 from here a while ago and have started to make progress. It's a '93 (only year it was made, I believe)
The bike originally came specced with the Suntour Expert groupset but I fancied a slight upgrade. I'm going for XC Pro but haven't managed to source all the bits so, for the moment, I'll proceed with mostly XC pro and a few XC comp bits until (if I ever!) find what I need.
I started the build by checking the carbon tubes as best as could with a camera and no cracks. Phew!
Instead of the flouro or purple route of 8700 and 8900's I wanted to polish the frame. It was my first attempt at polishing aluminium, and I won't be doing it again in a hurry!
Having taped off the carbon tubing, I went about stripping the grey paint from the headtube, rearstays, and bb area etc. I mainly used 250, 400, 800, 1200 and then 2500 wet and dry paper and used a dremel in the harder to reach places, finishing again by hand. The primer on these frames was no joke and took some serious elbow grease to shift.
It's not perfect, but I'm pretty happy with the result for now.
Before:
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