Raw bike? Show me and tips please

Thinking of striping down my DMR jumper and rawing the bastid. It’s got white forks which will stay as they are or partly white (around the seals and axle for handiness).

I’ve done a bit of bike/frame pimping in the past (distant past) but is nitromors/sandpaper/wirewool route still the best way to go about it? Frame is cromo so could be blasted, but it’s an occupy myself while trying to stop smoking project and happy to use a bit of elbow grease. Keeping costs down is also a concern (i’ll hopefully save £25 in weekly smoke money so that’s the budget for now).

So show me rawers and any tips on how to get a lovely soft sheen. I’m planning on re-stickering it with semi-custom decals with plenty of lacquer on top. Scheme will be raw/black with a bit of red and white.

I might even do a time lapse photo/video thing to help keep me motivated and occupy my mind even more.

I can’t help with advice but good luck giving up

I rawed my old Giant Reign.
Took it to a powder coaters in bits, they dipped it, I gave them £25…… job done.
Went over it with a kitchen scourer pad after.

Nitromores, wire wool and a shed load of elbow grease for this.

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P1000890[/url] by i_ache[/url], on Flickr

This frame was degreased and powdercoated clear.

These two frames started black. I nitromorsed them and cleaned them off with degreaser. Then applied around 6 layers of clearcoat to them. Really easy, quick and the finish was great.

Cheers Partyboy.

Looking good lads. I guess it comes down to what’s underneath the paint as to what kind of finish you can achieve (ally or steel)

How was the Mors for getting into the nooks and crannies?

That looks steel (and is very lovely), and it the kind of finish i’m hoping to get, not to shiny, not too dull.

Mine looks like this now. Keeping the old man’s saddle and maybe go for some gumwall tyres to match as a reward for stopping.

Getting a bit excited now. Keep’em coming.

relevant hijack – I want to clearcoat some forks of mine I’ve stripped back, what’s the durability of the above coatings like? I’ve asked local powdercoaters and they’ve all tried to steer me away from clear powdercoat. Plus I’d like to do a pattern on the steel, and then clearcoat over it (a bit like over stickers) so a hand applied product would be better as powdercoating would destroy any paint underneath. Any recommendations?

I sort of cheated and just asked Orange to send me it already raw (they clear coated it and put the stickers on so it was ready to go). But raw with white forks looks good (I used to have black forks and thought white would look rubbish, but when they blew up these were cheap and I think work nicely)

The white forks look better than i thought. Mine are a bit grubby, if they clean up, i might just desticker them.

Just been browsing (slow day at work) for new chainrings. Don’t think my budget is at all realistic 😀

Here it is with black forks. In the flesh the white ones look better.

Euro- Nitromorse works really well.
Just do it in stages. I smothered the whole thing and left it for a while, then used wire wool to rub it off. Repeat until its all gone. It only took one can and about 1hr labour in total. Well worth it though. Be aware that the raw steel has some oil marks burnt onto it. I’m sure you could remove it with some wire wool but I think it looks nice and rustic.

Motivforz- the coating is not very durable. I left the clearcoat to harden for a few weeks but the rust starts creeping under the lacquer after about 6 months. The rust starts wherever the frame has been chipped. It never became an issue though and was never more than a couple cm long. Again, I think it adds character.

Euro- Nitromorse works really well.
Just do it in stages. I smothered the whole thing and left it for a while, then used wire wool to rub it off. Repeat until its all gone. It only took one can and about 1hr labour in total. Well worth it though. Be aware that the raw steel has some oil marks burnt onto it. I’m sure you could remove it with some wire wool but I think it looks nice and rustic.

Cheers Ska. What did you use to degrease it (generic degreaser?) I’m gonna pop into homebase on the way home from work and get started this evening.

Going for a classy homebrew© look, so the oil marks will add a bit a interest.

I just popped into Halfords and picked up a huge container of just generic degreaser (not sure what it was called). I’ve managed 3 frames and still plenty left. It was under £10 too.

just pop down to your local alloy wheel refurb place for a soft media blast. Much better for a frame than a shotblast. Mine cost a tenner to get done, then just finish with a hand sand and polish until you get to the finish you want. Saves sooooo much hassle!

I Ache, wher did you get your decals from?

I have an SX Trail that I want to repaint because the original poo brown finish is looking a bit tired now.

I embrace the hassle Tazzy. If my hands are busy, i’ll not be smoking 😀

Ska, seems homebase have everything I need and i’ve just borrowed a handful of rubber gloves from work and several big cardboard boxes. Very tempted to leave early and get started.

I got them from a bloke I found on eBay. I took pics and measurements of the old stickers and he cut them out of vinyl for me. They were a very reasonable price and have lasted really well. If you mail me I will send you his email address.

My enduro was poo brown, looked horrible and was a bitch to remove.

I used nitromors and a wire brush. If I was doing it again I’d definitely pay to have it blasted or dipped, too much aggro.

Cheers I Ache. Will drop you a line in a sec. My SX isn’t too bad because the head tube is black with lightning bolts down the top and down tube, then it becomes poo brown.

Back on topic, the hardest part I found was removing paint from the welds. Here is a Chameleon frame that has been polished (my other half’s bike).

Can’t find a pic of it finished.

Very tempted to leave early and get started.

And so i did. Got nitromors , wire wool pads, degreaser and a fillet tower burger. I do believe i’m ready to start.

Make sure you let the nitromorse do its thing. I just left it for a couple hours per layer. I really had no issue removing from Charge frames, not even round the welds. Just take it easy.

Is it possible to only strip part of a frame, as in mask off half of a top tube and strip the other half?

Recently finished an Old Boardman frame. The Nitromorse did not touch the paint ! The welds on the Boardman are all smoothed using the hardest material in the universe. It took a while to pick all this off.

All in all I reckon at least £50 worth of materials to strip, ( had to use fibre brushes on a drill) All for a bike I lend out to mates who are not that into MTB. Kept me busy for a while when I could not ride though.

Double Post Aaaaarg

I’m gonna bore you all with pics of my progress…

Bike stripped

Did a little test and the headset cups are mors proof. Result. Though my split link pinged off into the stone covered garden. My eldest got a magnet set from santa, so his mission when he comes home is to locate it.

First lick is on and hopefully doing it’s thing. Cuppa time 😀

Good luck, I hope the paint is easier to remove thasn Specialized paint. Mine took over a week bat 3 hours a night. I wanted to start smoking it was that much hard work.

Following with interest!

I once saw an olde worlde lugged road frame done with a raw finish. Where the brazes were done, it turned golden over time. Looked absolutely gorgeous. Any blemishes it accumulates over time will only add to it’s character.

I found (the new version of) nitromors painfully slow. I would advise getting it bead blasted, then nitromors the remaining bits with wire wool. see how it goes, never too late to find a bead blaster mid week and finish for riding next weekend 🙂

Nitromors 0 – DMR paint 1

Second coat on for over an hour now and it’s hardly made an impression. No surface bubbling to speak of but it is slightly easier to scrape with a blade. I’ll leave it a bit longer (while I bath the kids) and wash it oof and start scraping.

I’ve got a few weeks until this lot is finished 😀

and finally 😯

I’d bin off the nitromors. IIRC to conform with EU nonsense they actually removed the active ingredient that striped the paint off. Now it’s just green sludge. Nail varnish remover will probably do a better job.

I had the same thing with rawing an old steel bike frame.

A day scrubbing and a whole bottle of nitromors later it barely made a difference.

Took it to a blasters the next day. Best 15 quid I’ve spent.

Those jumps look sick…
I expect you’re not going to reveal the location… 🙂

I’ve started so i’ll finish…

Washed down, scraped and a quick once over with the wool. On areas that had about 4mm of gunk it seemed to do what is was supposed to, a third thick layer is on and will stay on for a hour or two.

kayak23 – Member
Those jumps look sick…
I expect you’re not going to reveal the location…

They sure do, and i sure will. But first a little story. A few guys (i helped a bit with digging and jump guinea pigging) built these a few years back

Then Daffyd Davies was shown them along with some local councillors and this happened

Now the council are paying for these new beauties (a considerable amount of tax payers money, no less) in the exact same spot, along with 8k of trails.

They’re beside the Mary Peters running track in Belfast.

Modern nitromores is poo…the last stuffing bought struggled to deal with decals, let alone paint.

The old stuff was ace.

Those jumps look ace, shame the council flattened the original ones. At least you’re getting some sanctioned replacements.

I’m not so sure its the nitromores being useless, I even tried brake fluid to strip mine and it did nothing. I am guessing my frame was powder coated as new and isn’t PC a plastic? The dmr may well be the same.

I think it might be a bit of both. Nitromors isn’t the product i remember and the primer/paint/lacquer on the dmr is fairly stubborn. Looks like there’s a bit of overspray on the inside of the seat tube, so i don’t think it’s PC.

A lot of daubing, scraping and rubbing for not much reward. Enjoying it though.

Frame got another glooping and put to bed ’til tomorrow night.

Well, it’s getting there! Considering that’s one evening. Good stuff.
I guess charge bikes use some rubbish paint or maybe I was using the old stuff.

Cheers ska, i think if it was applied to a flat surface it might work ok, but you really need to lather it on and just gets heavy and it runs round the tubes. I’m using a 70p brush which might not be helping much.

umop3pisdn, i did really look at your bike in all my excitement, it’s a cracker. Very tasteful. Glad i started this but I think if I do it again i’ll blast it too. It’s a once every 20 years type project 😀

I’m pretty tempted to do my bmx forks now 😈

Leave it like that, it looks propah ghetto

Hehe, cheers, I loved it but unfortunately it’s no longer with me 🙁