Trek Roscoe - Raw and Polish

[Fleming]

I've had my Trek for a little over 3 years now and the paint has stated to look very grubby. Lots of scrapes through to the metal and in general it was just looking very tired. I have always loved polished aluminium bikes and thought now was the time to give my Roscoe this treatment.

 

Below is a overview of the process from start to finish.

 

Obligatory before picture:

 

Because I wanted to polish the frame I didnt want to sand the paint off or have it sand blasted. Instead I opted to use a chemical paint stripper with brass pot scourer and brush to remove the paint. I did a small test on the bottom of the BB to check that the stripper would do its job.

 

Next I had to disassemble the bike and start stripping the paint.

 

After a few hours I was left with this:

 

Unfortunately I didnt get any pics of the next few steps. After removing the paint I started wet sanding with 800 grit sand paper and finished off with 1200 grit. Then came polishing with a product called Autosol and finally I applied some fresh decals.

 

And finally some pics of the complete bike:

 

 

 

 

 

[MajG]

Well done, looks stunning.

 

How long did this process take you in man hours

[Chris_]

Wow! thats incredible, it looks brilliant

[Alouette3]

Looks great!

 

No plan to clear coat the frame? Maybe some car wax even, to help seal things and prevent dulling from oxidation?

[bertusras]

Hot!

[BuffsVintageBikes]

Looks great but I'd certainly try and clear coat that frame, especially staying so close to the coast.

[AdamA]

Very Lekker!!!! Well done!

[Fleming]

Thanks for the kind words guys.

 

Well done, looks stunning.

How long did this process take you in man hours

In total it was about 16 hours. This included 2 hours messing around with the internal routing for the gear cable. I hope there is a special place reserved in hell for the Trek engineer who designed this system.

 

Looks great!

 

No plan to clear coat the frame? Maybe some car wax even, to help seal things and prevent dulling from oxidation?

 

Looks great but I'd certainly try and clear coat that frame, especially staying so close to the coast.

 

No plans to clear coat. I have done this to 2 bikes in the past and it needs less maintenance than you would think. Maybe half and hour to polish it every 6 months or so.

 

I have done some reading and it seems there are 2 problems with clear coating: 

1 - Because you cant use a primer and the surface is so smooth it difficult to get it to stick properly without it flaking off at a later stage.

2 - If you chip the clear coat you get oxidation starting at that point which can then spread underneath the clear coat. It starts spreading in thin vein like "worms". If there happens there is nothing you can do besides stripping it and starting again.

 

 

[Chadvdw67]

Looks awesome man, well done!

[Hairy]

next up is stripping and polishing the cranks

 

she looks really good!

[Ispeed_V]

What paint stripper did you use?

[lechatnoir]

Like the optometrist said - better now

[Fleming]

next up is stripping and polishing the cranks

 

she looks really good!

 Yeah I'm considering it.

[Fleming]

What paint stripper did you use?

 

Its called Duram Durastrip. I got it at builders. I have also used one from Alcolin in the past. Both worked well.

 

You have to be very careful with this stuff. A tiny spot on your skin burns like crazy.

Edited January 14, 2021 by Fleming

[JacBrand]

Love it!

[MrJacques]

So shiny! Very nice 

 

Where did you get the Autosol? I've seen it mentioned on forums, but I don't think I've seen it locally.

 

I have some Miroxol that I assume is similar - got it from an antique shop.