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kenny's bike is primed

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

I finally finished stripping the paint off of the bike I'm rebuilding for Kenny, and have started painting the primer.

Getting the cranks off the bike required two additional purchases: a 30mm wrench (typically of Canada, a 30mm wrench is sold with handle lengths billed in inches, so mine's stamped 30mm - 12"); and some "liquid wrench". The latter is useful for loosening super-tight, grimy, fused nuts and bolts such as the type found on bike cranks. It smells truly awful but it works very, very well. And I learned something important while watching an educational video on Youtube on this subject - bike cranks are reverse threaded so the use of the pedals encourages the nuts to tighten instead of slowly loosening them. DO NOT attempt to left-loosen the nuts on bicycle cranks.

I discovered a further clever trick on my own - if you break open a cardboard box upon which to put the frame while spray-painting it, you can tuck the folded end of the cardboard into the wheel stays and prop the frame up. Some balled up painter's tape in the various orifices, and you're golden.