To remove the paint or not

[SteveW]

Guys,

Our club Sweet Pea is in the middle of a major refurb after we discovered a few too many tears on the tube face during this year's pressure test.

I'm investigating going for stove emamelled frames, you know, give the old thing a treat after twenty years honest service to the club. Usual story, everyone moans about it getting a bit tatty but no one'll either put their hand in their pocket or get off the bum and do anything about it. This plus the treasurer is urging a spray tin from Halfords.

Anyway, my question is (and I did do a search) should I ensure that there is no paint (stove enamel) on the frames behind the cylinders?

or

Just bolt them to the nice new stove enamelled surface?

If anyone here has a point to make about going for stove enamelling and I've already found it's not going to be cheap then please feel free. I'm also thinking about having the smoke box done at the same time.

[baggo]

Hi Steve,

The only experience I've had with stove enamelling is on motor bike frames etc. when I've been rebuilding the bikes and I've found it to be quite brittle and prone to chipping. One problem you may have to watch with bolting the cylinders on top of the enamelling is if the paint is thick it may throw the cylinder alignment out. I've read cases of people building locos, stripping them for painting and then finding they won't go back together again properly because of the extra thickness of the paint!

John

[SteveW]

Baggo,

Thanks for the reply. I thought of the alignment issue not long after pressing the post button. I remembered the crosshead bit gets screwed down on to a bit a fixed distance out from centre line. I may end up making a mask for the cylinder bolt down area.

Re the brittle issue: I was chatting to the enamel guy and he mentioned some epoxy element to what he did. A chap at work had his traction engine done there so I'll follow that one up.