Roody's Lugged Frame - Part 3: Finishing & Painting

Its finished! This lugged tour is going to get him, his dog, and his gear all the way up to New York and back (and hopefully more!) How did we finish it?

    Okay, where did we leave off? Right, braze-ons.

Brazing Frame Additions:
    The braze-ons I ordered from Nova (at a RIDICULOUS shipping rate, might I say) spent a few days meandering from California before reaching us in north Florida. Luckily, all of the pieces we needed were in the package.

   First, I check everything for fit, and scribe the miters on the rear brake cantilevers. Next, measure and mark the positions of all of the bottle cage mounts, cable stops, shifter lever bosses, canti brake mounts, rack mounts, fender mounts, chain hanger and cable guide.

   The cantis needed a little adjusting, so I opted to clinch them in a vice jig and file them with a half round, since there wasn't much metal to get through. Everything else was clean and ready to go.

   To hold the parts in place, I took a metal spring clamp and drilled and tapped one side to thread a bolt into. I also made a wood & metal jig to hold the cantis in place at an appropriate spacing (75-85mm) while I tacked them on.

    All I had available was a stick welder, so it was a bit splattered, but it worked.

We started with the bottle & rack bosses, since they did not require a clamp to stay in place. Next,  I used my modified spring clamp to secure and braze on the cable stops, chain hanger, and shift levers. I ran out of silver, and switched to some brass rods I had that were not ideal, but worked fine.

   We filled the gaps in the cantis and the fender mounts/braces. and touched up any spots in the lugs that needed it. Now that we felt like everything was sufficiently attached and all the gaps were filled, we started the cleaning and painting process.

Cleaning:
   Roody got on top of sanding and buffing the frame. He hit all the spots were filler metal had pooled and any splattersor other imperfections. Next, he wiped it down with alcohol to remove and oils or other contaminants in order to prep it for priming.

Painting:

   Went way better than the Maiden Voyage. We started with a self-etching metal primer. two thin coats. Then it dried and cured overnight. In the morning we lightly sanded that first layer, then added a second. Once that dried, we put on a few coats of satin black metal specific paint. We let it dry between coats to get some buildup. After those layers dried, we set in with a super hard flat clear coat, also made specifically made for metal. Everything sat really well, so we added a couple of decals and a few more coats of clear, then called it done and let it cure for a day before touching it. It looked great, and seemed like it had adhered better than the lacquer paints i tried on the first frame.

SUCCESS! It's finished. Check out the pics and feel free to comment or email if you have any questions/comments, including requests for custom frames and or trailers!

sorry this post took so long! i've had a bunch of problems with blogspot not loading photos AND not saving work several times and losing hours of typing and layout! hopefully i'll have better luck in the future!