I have a frame I might fancy stripping and polishing, last time I did such a thing I used nitro mors but I seem to remember that’s had its formulation changed and is no longer very effective…

Anyone got any alternative suggestions?

Back in the day, if you just opened a can of nitromors within 6 foot of a frame, all the paint would just fall off.

Sadly, no more. Formulation change presumably because some/all of the active chemicals are not legal to sell.

I’d send the frame to a sand / bead * blaster and save yourself a whole lot of grief.

* No doubt someone else will detail the correct process

I would get it bead blasted, if I were going down the powder coating route (I may yet) but first I am toying with the idea of stripping and polishing it…

The people on retrobike.con who have polished frames now generally don’t have any fingertips left or sanity remaining to build the bike up again. If your frame is already a good finish it might be worth polishing but it’ll still be a nightmare of a job.

I’ve polished Shimano cranks and that was enough for me, chuffing nightmare. Problem is there are so many nooks and crannys you can’t use any polishing machine on.

I had some lowers off a pair of Marzocchi 1998 bead blasted, that gave a nice satin finish on the magnesium. I also had a early 90’s Rocky Mountain Experience where I redid its brushed finish with a Scotchbrite pad, that looked pretty cool and was easy to maintain.

Cranks I polished:

Rocky Mountain brushed finish:

Yes, they changed the formulation – although so did most other paint strippers. There was some EU legislation restricting the use of dichloromethane. Rightly so in my opinion as it is very nasty stuff. I generally come across two types of paint stripper these days. Some contain methanol and others acetic acid. The latter is probably safer and in my view just as effective. Yu are only stripping thin 1k paint of a bike so it should be effective.

New nitromors is methanol based. We use a local chemical manufacturer for our acetic acid stuff. You could check labels in B+Q. Methanol has to be on the label acetic acid doesn’t.

If you own a drill it might be worth buyng a wire brush or similar as it makes removal faster. Also a heat gun is quite effective for tidying up around welds.

Personally I’d pay someone else to dip it for you. Plenty of powder coaters and metal finishers will have paint stripping baths (usually caustic [NaOH]). By the time you bought materials and stripped it yourself a powder coater may be more effective. They can do clearcoats too, they often branch out into lacquers and simple spray operations.

Just find a local chemical strippers. I pay £10 for a frame and it’s normally done within 24 hours. No way would I go back to self paint stripping and definite don’t get it media blasted. Media blasting is perfectly fine when done properly but can remove metal if done wrong.

Try soda blasting.

I’ve done a rear triangle before and it’s a days work

I only got the frame last night, it’s a cheap frame, the last owner has done a rattle can black paint job straight over the original paint, it’s chipped, scraped and bubbled in a couple of places and needs a new finish of some sort… I could just rub it back a bit, fill the imperfections and do another rattle can job but I don’t really fancy that TBH, it’s never much good and always costs more than it should.

I’m definitely not settled on a polished/brushed frame I just thought it might work out as cheaper/similar cost to getting is blasted and powder coated, obviously just more labour intensive for me and then of course I’d have to maintain it… I was probably going to strip, wire brush and then 400/800 grit rub it down and either leave it as a “Brushed” finish or go the whole hog and out a polishing wheel…

But there’s a couple of places that do powder coating locally, I will probably see how much they want for a nice basic colour like a flat yellow, orange or green. It doesn’t have to be a masterpiece….

Out of interest has anyone used unimet in Reading for a Bike Frame before?