Yokota = Done!

Paint is done. 3 coats primer, 3 coats white, 2 coats blue and yellow fade, 5 coats clear rubbed out with compound. NOS original Dia Compe threadless headset and a snappy little headset top cap that...is a sign of things to come*.

*cliff hanger. That right there was a cliff hanger.

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Full frame shot, sitting with my veggies.

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Headset and stem.

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From the front.

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Three quarter view.

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Brake cable noodle detail.

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Dropouts.
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And the top cap detail.
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Note that it's red. That might be a clue*.


*cliff hanger!

More Yokota

So now I'm at that point in the Yokota build where I sit down every night with a bottle of my favorite goo....

...3M Rubbing Compound Polish

and sure, OK, fine...the other goo aint too badly either!



What I'm doing here is knocking down the high spots and roughness sometimes found on a rattle can finish. The 3M is great stuff, and it does an amazing job of bringing the clear coat up to snuff. Here the fork is shown, in process. Last night I finished the fork and stem and got started on the frame.

Here you can see the fork pretty well, in the light. These pictures are in process polishing shots, and the smoothness and gloss of the clear after being hit with the 3M is great. I'll save the final polished shots for when I have the frame/fork/stem all done and installed together.

We're moving now!

Snail Invasion!

We are being overrun!

Yokota direction change

I've suspended my Topo project. I told you earlier that I'd stumbled on another paint option that I like better. That and the greens available in rattle cans just suck. I've got a ravaged Joe Murray Velocity stem that I'm going to play the topo game with, but for the Yokota...a new direction...

So, with the help of Mr. Piggy...

Blue and Yellow pastel fade! How Florida! Too bad the frame isn't a 'Yokota South Beach'.

PPA. "Plastic Porker Approved"

The denatured Alcohol has nothing to do with the paint job...that's just what I huff in the morning to get myself going.

So there it is. I'm excited about the way it turned out. The complete Frame/Fork/Stem pics are on the way, after I rub out the clear on the frame a bit. Rattle Can clear generates a very orange peel finish that I'll need to massage to smooth, but I have high hopes.

Not to shabby...

eBay...The New Hotness

New goodies through the eBay in-door...


DX Thumbshifters

Race Face chainrings.

Ritchey Rock 440 rims, for the pair.

Sachs 8 speed twisters.

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See, I am still alive after all! And of course, I had nothing to do with the taking of any of these pictures.... Boooo!

Yokota in COLOR

The color goes on and I have to say that I'm a bit torn. I'm liking the topo idea, but I've run across another color scheme on accident that I'm considering as an alternative.

Here's the stem, blue and white, and right after this picture, yellow.



And the fork...blue and white and green, as planned, and while the paint finish looks great, the green isn't what I'd dreamed it would be...


It's dark.

Here's a test spray on an old Bontrager handlebar, with another green, and this one looks really military, and together with the sandy yellow, makes me feel like I'm painting bikes for the SOCCENT Mountain Bike Team.

Here's where the green bugs me. It's just so dark. The paint company has these three colors listed as general equals in saturation of color, but the green is D-A-R-K. I'm going to try to lessen the green by adding white, but I'm not sure how that would look.... I may wind up with yellow, white, and blue.

ANd here's the topo test. Here just draw on with Sharpies. Putting a map to a curved surface isn't the easiest thing to do...

I like it, so now I have to solve the logistics of the topo graphic finish. I could draw the whole thing with Sharpies ans clear over the lot, or maybe a Testor's model paint pen and then clear, or maybe no topo at all. The blue-white-yellow is pretty...

Yokota in white!

Stem in paint. This is the tack-coat of the base color for my Yokota Topo Bike.

And some frame shots...again in tack coat waiting light prep and then more color.

Shed Door part dos

In primer now, compliments of the time granted to me by the Memorial Day holiday.

Yokota Yosemite - Phase 4

Moving right along on the Yokota. Spent a little time this weekend getting the stem to primer and doing some finish work on the frame itself. The fork is ready for paint at this point, now that I've decided to NOT lop off the rack mounts on those dropouts. More on that in a bit.


Stem steerer tube clamp area, sprayed up with the hardware removed.

Stem bar clamp area, again sans hardware. I'll plug these areas a little better when I lay down the color and the clear.

Stays all tidied up and ready to roll. I could probably spray and sand these areas a bit more to get them even flatter, but they are pretty tight right now, and the layers to come will smooth everything out even more, such that in the end, you'll be hard pressed to find the evidence of rack mounts at all. No filler here, just metal work.

Frame, ready.

Stem, ready.

And the Fork, ready. These are the drops that will keep their rack mounts. I'd like to lop them off too, but I don't want to narrow the drop and make the fork weaker. Perforated dropouts are no fun, and besides...I like my teeth in my head.

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Next up...color!