Now then, what's Peachy been up to? you may ask.
Well I've been having a crack at touching up or maybe a better description would be stabilizing the slight damage and surface rust on THM's new love.
Silver or really any metalic is an absolute bitch to touch up as there is no way hand painting can replicate how the metallic flakes sit when they have been spray painted and if THM had wanted this to be perfect then the best thing to do would be pack it up and send it back to Bristol for a complete respray. But that's quite expensive and the majority of this frame is immaculate.
So, what can we do?
A. stabilize the rust. B. have a good sound smooth shiny finish (even if it’s likely to be mismatched)
The following is a blow by blow of one small area on the offside top tube, it's worth noting if I was doing this with black the result would be almost flawless, but here goes nothing...
1. Here's some of the kit I will be employing.
2. First job is to clean the frame, initially with T-cut, then with a citrus cleaner, this gets rid of all dirt, road tar etc and the citrus cleaner cleans away the waxes left behind by the T-cut. Notice the cable rub marks and black smudge disappear in pic 3. the frame was covered in these little blemishes and now looks much better for a deep clean.
3. Then clean out the rust and loose paint with a wire brush on a Dremel.
4. Quick 5-minute treatment with Rust Dissolver
5. Careful with this stuff, it’s nasty
6. Touch-up with acid etch primer (sprayed into the lid then applied by brush)
7. Paint in the required colour
Leave for 24 hrs to dry