Painting the CX Bike - Part 4 - Preparation

One of the things my uncle taught me was that a paint job is 95% prep work, and 5% spraying the paint.

So I started sanding down the frame. I started with 220 grit wet/dry paper. A tub of hot water with a little Dawn dishwashing soap to wet the paper in kept the paper from gumming up and becoming useless.

I hit the entire frame and spent extra time on all the problem areas. Wherever there was rust, I went all the way to bare metal.

This is a lot of work, especially on a bicycle frame. Cars are much easier in this respect.



The goal of this process is the level the surface and fix any chips or rusty spots.

After smoothing the frame and taking it down to a leveled surface, I shot a coat of primer.

At this point, I found a ton of flaws that had not been addressed the first time. So I sanded it down again to level and smooth those flaws. Then I primed again. Three more times this process flowed until I had a nice smooth surface to lay color on.

The final step of this section of the process was to lay the Auto Air Sealer. This is part of the Auto Air product and makes sure that the color base coat will adhere correctly to the frame. It comes in different shades, so I stuck with white to match the white coat of paint.