I am in love with my Bianchi Campione de Italia. The size and geometry are good as are the melding and meshing of parts now. The gestalt is there, but I don't want to get into a complete repaint with decals right now. I noticed that the only frame sections that need repaint are the fork (but not the crown),and the chainstays and seatstays look bad. Recently I repainted the fork and headtube filler of my Raliegh to good effect with a nice clearcoat to protect it. As others on the list pointed out, rattle can paint jobs take three months to cure. Sure enough, after patiently waiting for three months the paint cured and now seems durable and hard.
My Bianchi is Celeste, so repainting in the original color would be impossible for the lack of having something readily available in the exact color in a can. It occurs to me that I could repaint the fork parts black, but not the crown.... repaint the chainstays and the seatstays black too. The question is what would be classically correct? If I repaint the fork, don't I also have to do the headtube inner? This brings up the issue of masking around the headtube decal. Maybe I should repaint the two headtube lugs, the crown and the fork and leave the headtube inner. This way I would only be losing the fork Columbus decals, or maybe it is best to mask the fork decals or best to get new ones in green as are the originals. If I repaint the headtube lugs than do I have to repaint the seat lug and bottom bracket black too or is it ok to do the headtube lugs in black and not touch the bb and the seat tube lug? Strangely the paint in the three main tubes is sweet despite the stays and fork. What would look right? Personally I like black on Celeste.
Garth Libre in Miami Fl.