Hi all, After a long few years of indecision and uncertainty my Ift is 95%ish finished 
So i thought I would share my blood sweat and tears with you all on this journey from frame to bike.
The frame was bought from ebay about 3 years ago in quite poor condition, no decals, bad lacquer and a stuck in bottom bracket, it was under £40 and still a bargain.
To get the bottom bracket out I had to heat the frame with a blow torch and with some persuasion with a huge torque wrench eventualy managed to get it out.
The next stage was to remove the old lacquer, the best way i found to remove it was to wipe it down with the missus's acetone then use autosol and a green scourer, quite a rough one first which gave the aluminium a matt effect once the lacquer came off, then over with a soft scourer and autosol then eventualy same with a teatowell until it was shiny again, That part doesnt sound too bad but took an awful long time to do!
Once that was done I contacted a fellow member to get the decals which came quickly and looked good, The headtube badge was difficult to find and eventually I managed to get one nos from a us seller on ebay. The frame is a 1996 model but I chose the 1995 decals to go on as i feel they are a nicer colour, it maybe wrong in some opinions but i like them better .
Then the next part was the biggest hold up of the whole process......
Do I put the decals on and lacquer over, or lacquer first, this opened up a minefield and was not as easy as I thought, because it was bare aluminium the lacquer would not key / hold to the metal, there is apparently a special lacquer that can be used but could i find someone who could do.......no!. I looked at ball burnishing and other options but got stuck there so the frame sat in the garage for about 18 months redundant.
Then about 6 months ago I met a chap who said he could do it, I got the decals out, polished up the frame again and fitted the decals and gave him the frame to spray, 1 week later he returned with the frame which didnt look to bad at a glance, he said it needed a quick buff then would be fine, How wrong was he! the lacquer was awful, it was dull in places and there were what i could only describe as patchy bits and to top it all off some of the decals had come off and he had still lacquered over it, I was gutted to say the least and back to square 1.
This time to strip the frame I used nitromors and the new lacquer jetwashed off with ease after leaving for a couple of hours, and with some autosol looked great again after a quick polish.
So this time I have put the decals onto the bare frame and just leaving it like that, no lacquer which i know will mean a lot of polishing to look nice but I think it's worth it.
I chose manitou 3's for the forks, they have had a full rebuild, black stansions swapped for gold out of a set of manitou comp, and replaced the elastomers with some wings springs, All bolts and brake bosses replaced with titanium equivelants.
Its not a full retro build, there are one or two modern twists but my budget wasnt massive so had to compromise here and there but I hope you like it, I do
Spec
1996 Marin Indian Fire Trail Frame
Manitou 3 Forks
Chris king headset
Mavic D521 rims with Xt m737 hubs and green wildgripper tyres
Xt m739 brake & shifter sti
Xt m739 rear mech with blue middleburn breakaway
Xt m739 front mech
Xtr M950 8sp cassette
White industries cranks wih blue middleburn bolts & outer ring
Xtr un90 Bottom bracket
Xt m738 v-brakes with ti pinch bolts
Answer hyperlite bars
X-lite fly blue stem with gold ti bolts
Thomson Elite seatpost
Cannondale team racing seat
Dmr v12 (New slimline type) with blue pins
Dura ace chain
Crank bros blue quick releases
Yeti grips turqouise (looking for blue ones)
Blue Jagwire pro cable set.
To finish off I would like to replace the 2 other rings on the crank with matching middleburn, blue yeti grips, Blue X-lite v-brake bolts and maybe a ringle h2o.
Then in the garage is a 1996 Marin team frs which will be taking a similar path, lacquer removal has already begun, if ive not bored you too much hopefully you will check it out when its done
So i thought I would share my blood sweat and tears with you all on this journey from frame to bike.
The frame was bought from ebay about 3 years ago in quite poor condition, no decals, bad lacquer and a stuck in bottom bracket, it was under £40 and still a bargain.
To get the bottom bracket out I had to heat the frame with a blow torch and with some persuasion with a huge torque wrench eventualy managed to get it out.
The next stage was to remove the old lacquer, the best way i found to remove it was to wipe it down with the missus's acetone then use autosol and a green scourer, quite a rough one first which gave the aluminium a matt effect once the lacquer came off, then over with a soft scourer and autosol then eventualy same with a teatowell until it was shiny again, That part doesnt sound too bad but took an awful long time to do!
Once that was done I contacted a fellow member to get the decals which came quickly and looked good, The headtube badge was difficult to find and eventually I managed to get one nos from a us seller on ebay. The frame is a 1996 model but I chose the 1995 decals to go on as i feel they are a nicer colour, it maybe wrong in some opinions but i like them better
.Then the next part was the biggest hold up of the whole process......
Do I put the decals on and lacquer over, or lacquer first, this opened up a minefield and was not as easy as I thought, because it was bare aluminium the lacquer would not key / hold to the metal, there is apparently a special lacquer that can be used but could i find someone who could do.......no!. I looked at ball burnishing and other options but got stuck there so the frame sat in the garage for about 18 months redundant.
Then about 6 months ago I met a chap who said he could do it, I got the decals out, polished up the frame again and fitted the decals and gave him the frame to spray, 1 week later he returned with the frame which didnt look to bad at a glance, he said it needed a quick buff then would be fine, How wrong was he! the lacquer was awful, it was dull in places and there were what i could only describe as patchy bits and to top it all off some of the decals had come off and he had still lacquered over it, I was gutted to say the least and back to square 1.
This time to strip the frame I used nitromors and the new lacquer jetwashed off with ease after leaving for a couple of hours, and with some autosol looked great again after a quick polish.
So this time I have put the decals onto the bare frame and just leaving it like that, no lacquer which i know will mean a lot of polishing to look nice but I think it's worth it.
I chose manitou 3's for the forks, they have had a full rebuild, black stansions swapped for gold out of a set of manitou comp, and replaced the elastomers with some wings springs, All bolts and brake bosses replaced with titanium equivelants.
Its not a full retro build, there are one or two modern twists but my budget wasnt massive so had to compromise here and there but I hope you like it, I do
Spec
1996 Marin Indian Fire Trail Frame
Manitou 3 Forks
Chris king headset
Mavic D521 rims with Xt m737 hubs and green wildgripper tyres
Xt m739 brake & shifter sti
Xt m739 rear mech with blue middleburn breakaway
Xt m739 front mech
Xtr M950 8sp cassette
White industries cranks wih blue middleburn bolts & outer ring
Xtr un90 Bottom bracket
Xt m738 v-brakes with ti pinch bolts
Answer hyperlite bars
X-lite fly blue stem with gold ti bolts
Thomson Elite seatpost
Cannondale team racing seat
Dmr v12 (New slimline type) with blue pins
Dura ace chain
Crank bros blue quick releases
Yeti grips turqouise (looking for blue ones)
Blue Jagwire pro cable set.
To finish off I would like to replace the 2 other rings on the crank with matching middleburn, blue yeti grips, Blue X-lite v-brake bolts and maybe a ringle h2o.
Then in the garage is a 1996 Marin team frs which will be taking a similar path, lacquer removal has already begun, if ive not bored you too much hopefully you will check it out when its done
