Gravy and Fame

A little interim lag in the build process and as we decided to do a stainless head badge on John's bike and I took my first steps towards fame. Fame? I'll get to that in a minute.

First, the bike:

Naked frame all prepped for paint w/the badge masked off.

Sitting in the "hot box" getting the paint cured after two coats of slate grey Imron.

This last pic does a good job of showing the color and the lug shorelines....nice and sharp! I love shooting metallic colors lke this- the paint looks like it's alive and moving when it first goes down. Well, I guess you had to be there to see what I mean, bur trust me, it's a cool effect.

I stupidly forgot to get any pictures, but I took my first step towards fame this week when I was interviewed by the local Channel 7 news for their "Made in New Mexico" segment. It was pretty weird having a camera man and a news anchor follow me around the shop asking questions about framebuilding, but I guess all of us famous folk have to get used to that, huh? ;)

It's supposed to air in October so I'll have to post up a link then. Of course, I might be so famous by that time that I'll have to have my people do the blog post for me........

Waiting for the gravy

John's bike getting the final touches as I wait to get a full day to devote to painting: This is a brake bridge, regular, boring, and the same as every other bike out there.



How's about this bridge? I took a couple of stock factory bridges, and here's what I came up with after a bit of bending, brazing, and filing. I figured that because this bridge might never actually have a brake on it, it needed to look cool by itself. It will also double as a fender mount after I drill and tap a couple of holes in it.
You can also se the upper rack mounts in this shot.
Head shot. The surface rusting you see will all be gone in a phosphoric acid wash prior to the primer coat. Not only does the wash clean all the rust inside and out, it "etches" the metal and makes the primer adhere better.

A nice and off center full frame shot. Someday I'll learn to take a good picture....someday.

Chef says.............

"Your fork is done!"

Can you tell Halloween comes early at our house?