Painting the CX Bike - Part 5 - Color

After all that prep work, it was time for some color. This is when the paint job starts to look like a paint job!

I shot the white of the main tubes first. I used the touchup gun to lay the color and it went on very well with 40psi and approx 10% reducer.

Masking for the blue was the next task. Intially, I masked with standard green masking tape and used an Exacto to cut the shorelines. The result was terrible. I was beyond dissappointed with my results......

So I started over. This time I used 1/8" blue polyurethane 3M masking tape. This tape pulls and stretches around the shorelines very well. I then put the green tape around the ends of the tubes and cut the tape back from the blue tape. This gave a nice masked line. Finally, I sprayed a line of white AutoAir around the blue tape to seal its edges. This ensures the next color does not bleed under the tape.

Finally, I sprayed blue on the frame to finish the color. I used the touch up gun for the main body of work, and followed up with the airbrush for the shoreline areas.