Leave rusty or paint it?

Rat Rod Bikes Bicycle Forum

Help Support Rat Rod Bikes Bicycle Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Joined
Mar 19, 2012
Messages
522
Reaction score
246
Location
Virginia Beach
Rating - 100%
4   0   0
My son wants me to paint the rusty headlight on my Jetflow. He thinks the brown rust dosen't go with the bike. The bike is ruff so I don't see a problem with the rusty light. Other than the springer nothing else on the frame has been repainted. If I do repaint the light it will be painted red like the tips of the forks. The light didn't originally come off a Jetflow so it has white paint showing through the rust instead of red paint, thats the only reason I would repaint since it wasn't originally red.
What do ya'll think? leave or paint :?:
Kenny
img_2753.jpg

img_2750.jpg
 
what would be a good way to stress the new paint?
 
Paint it red then age it,only because I have a beehive for my JetFlow that needs painted, and I want to see how yours comes out and how you do it...
 
I would just knock off some of the heavy orange rust with some 000 or 0000 steel wool and let it ride. Will still show pitting and rust and match the patina of the bike better. Just a suggestion.
 
I'd paint it red right over the rust. Then wet sand it with very very fine paper. The red will be removed from the highest rust patches first, giving you a red light with rust coming through.
 
outskirtscustoms said:
Personally I'd paint the housing black and age it to match the frame.

This x2 or just leave it alone and paint the kid.
 
I like it. If it ain't broke don't fix it
 
dougfisk said:
paint it - nothing to lose :)

...besides decades of real patina. You can't buy that off a shelf in a hardware store.
 
Craiggo said:
dougfisk said:
paint it - nothing to lose :)

...besides decades of real patina. You can't buy that off a shelf in a hardware store.

but if you repaint it, you over the years make your own Patina and instead of riding around that ole sole bike, you now will have a story and memory of the scratches,goudges dents,dings and all other sorts of damage and rust will be from your bikes second or maybe third life that you now have accquired it in..

but then again all back to personal prefence.. i say paint.. not enough Patina to really loook great so do her up in a fantasy dress up in a new coat of paint :mrgreen:
 
ozzmonaut I took your idea, I skuffed the light with white scotchbrite, just enough for the paint to stick and panted it red. Then used white scotchbrite and NU-Finish Scratch Doctor and started rubbing until enough rust came to the surface for the look I wanted.
Thanks guys for all the replies.
Kenny
img_2796.jpg

img_2801.jpg

img_2797.jpg

img_2798.jpg

img_2799.jpg
 
iven said:
Craiggo said:
dougfisk said:
paint it - nothing to lose :)

...besides decades of real patina. You can't buy that off a shelf in a hardware store.

but if you repaint it, you over the years make your own Patina and instead of riding around that ole sole bike, you now will have a story and memory of the scratches,goudges dents,dings and all other sorts of damage and rust will be from your bikes second or maybe third life that you now have accquired it in..

but then again all back to personal prefence.. i say paint.. not enough Patina to really loook great so do her up in a fantasy dress up in a new coat of paint :mrgreen:

I guess all I was doing was trying to create controversy. I really like how it turned out though! :D
 
I didn't want to repaint, if it would have been red originally I would have never painted it. But I'm really pleased with the outcome.
Kenny
 
Thanks, man. I picked up a horn a few days ago. Last night I wired the headlight into the tank, and mounted the working horn into the tank also. It's neat to have everything working like it did back in the day.
Kenny
 

Latest posts

Back
Top