The "Yellow Frank" Project - Current Status
Paint Stripping
With the bike in pieces, now it's time to remove the old, scratched and missing paint from everything by stripping it down to the metal. There are several ways that this could done. First, you could sandblast it. The nice thing with this is that the paint gets removed quickly and easily. It also removes rust allowing you to get a good paintable surface, The cons with blasting is the cost of blast media to do it, and containing the mess that it makes. You really need a confined, sealed off space to it in to keep the blast media from going all over. Because of this I decided to go the chemical stripping route.
What are the advantages of chemical stripping? It's cheaper for one thing. A can of stripper is less than $20 for a gallon. It also makes less of a mess. I laid plastic sheeting on the floor and the mess has pretty much stayed on it. The cons with this method are the fumes, that it is a poisonous liquid that will burn if you get it on bare skin and it is more labor intensive.
So made the decision and headed down to Home Depot and got a gallon of sprayable paint stripper, a brass brush, and cheap paint brush for applying and removing the paint. The paint brush helps get the stripper in the nooks and crannies and the brass brush helps remove the stubborn paint without scratching the metal. A helpful hint - use latex gloves or you'll burn yourself! Don't bother using nitrile gloves, they will melt too! Take your time and the paint will come right off.
This stuff works great
I now have most of the paint removed from the frame. When I get done all go over it and make sure that all the paint is removed from the crevices as well as any grease that may be around. Then I'll powerwash it once more to make sure that it's as clean as I can get it. Then I'll strip the rest of the parts.
Removing the paint from the frame
2/3's of the paint removed!
At this point it looks like I will spray the frame and parts using a single stage urethane paint. I have concerns about about durability and paint gloss using a powdercoat paint. I feel the best results will come from a single stage paint.