I had another case of paint matching today, for a 1982 Bridgestone with metallic bright candy orange paint with candy red head and seat tubes. I went to the True Value store and saw only a hopeless orange and a greenish gold, then decided I would get their #1114 Yellow and mix it with my home selection of #1104 Dark Red and #1145 White. To this I added some pure metallic mix, with 10 drops of yellow to 2 drops red and 3 drops white, this after starting with way too much red. The touch-ups look almost perfect, with the usual color changes when viewed at different angles. This was all really easy and easy to apply with just a toothpick. I'll smooth thing over tomorrow with a little rubbing compound. Bridgestone had some wild colors. I've never seen another bike that looks anything like this (It's just a lugged road bike, labeled "Triathlon Al" in script. That's Al, like Albert, not A-1. Funny name: the geometry is identical to almost any of their other road bikes, at 74-degrees, but Triathlon was a strong marketing buzzword at one time. My rain bike is a Detel "Triathlon 5000" that is, as with the B'stone, just a high-end (Ishiwata 022 throughout) 1979 road bike with horizontal dropouts and big clearances around 27" wheels. The Japanese makers seemed fixed on 74 degrees in most cases. Even my '77 Miyata Grand Tour (Gran-Tour?, with canti's and triple) was 74X74, and I donated it when I found a later Miyata six-ten tourer with 73X73 (and a lower bb). This one works better off-road through the gnarlies, with less tendency to endo but the occasional pedal strike. Then there was my B'stone 400 w/triple, also with 74X74 angles.
David Snyder Auburn, CA USA
----- Original Message ----- >
> I never had that good of luck finding either nail polish or standard auto
> touch-up paint that matched bikes, and have been going to a local auto
> paint shop to have bottles of paint mixed specifically to match my bikes.
> They did a great job of matching something as simple as the vaguely
> orangish shade of red that's on my Raleigh Team frame! Stuff like the
> flamboyant/candy paints on my Internationals and my Olmo are much, much
> tougher to match. 'bout drove the poor guys crazy. ;-)
>
> Steve Kurt
> Peoria, IL