Bike Painting

So this summer I decided to purchase a cheap but working bike. The price was right, the paint was not. No problem.

I took off the gear shifts, handle brakes, kickstand, water bottle holder, and the front tire. Sanded it all down until the paint was rough. The worst bit was sanding off the plastic decals, because I couldn’t get them off any other way.

Then I painted it, by brush, with a green rust guard paint. A tiny can of it was like $6, and I didn’t use more than half of the can. I did a second coat to touch up places. Make sure you let it dry for a good 24 hours before doing anything with it!

Then I had a stencil cut out, of birds, and proceeded to spray paint a white rust guard paint over the green. The spray can cost about $4 and I still have a bunch left. I plastic wrapped the places I didn’t want to get pain on and/or had it taped off.

My one mistake was thinking I could use the same stencil for both cross pieces. Two things happened:
1) I got paint on the top piece I didn’t mean to
2) I had bought my plastic adhesive that I cut the stencil out of from the dollar store, so it was thin and ripped when I went to remove it after the first use.
So I ended up having to cut a second stencil anyway, and have some mistakes that I didn’t want to go back and paint over with the green paint again.

Over all I’m very happy with it, but if I were to do it again, I would try and not rush the end.

Either way I don’t’ think anyone is stealing this bike!