Headtube Painting

Ok I will be upfront here. I finally got time to paint the frame I built at Doug Fattic's class. The "plan" was to have the head tube and windows a different color. I practiced with liquid mask,liquid Frisket and toothpaste. But yesterday when I sprayed the frame color it was,to say the least,very unacceptable. So I reprepped those areas and sprayed it the frame color then clear coated.
So now I have been wondering how feasible is it to hand paint these areas using base coat and good brushes?
Your advice would be great!

It's very feasible but will also stand out poorly. The surface texture of a wet spray and that of even a fine bristle brushed job are generally quite different. So for large surfaces like a head tube or lugs a brushed on paint will show the strokes pretty well. For cut outs and such where the paint is more dabbed on and the paint thickness is great it will flow out fairly evenly.

I suppose there are paint additives (reducer??) that slow down the off gassing and thus allow the brushed paint to better flow together. But that's beyond my pay scale. Andy (who is pondering some of this same issue as he approaches finishing a frame and has machine tools to refinish)

One option to do a 2nd color without spraying is to lug line the lugs. There are a variety of ways and tools to do that. It does require a very steady hand. Last week I helped Cliff (one of my students from last summer) finish painting his frame . We used the traditional ways to mask the windows in his lugs and of course the result was more than acceptable. It does require great attention to detail to get good results. Next week I'm going to be painting another student's frame with their help if you want to stop by and see how it is done.
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Those lugs look awesome, Doug. Interesting design.

Here is another student frame that he carved the lugs with a design he created in the same way. In this case I painted the gold lug color 1st. Then I applied with rubber cement the the template printed and cut out of vellum paper. After the basic template was applied, I used an Exacto knife to cut the paper to the edges of the lug including the windows. after that I painted the main color. While this method worked fine, it was more time consuming then my usual way of painting the main color 1st and then masking the tubes and painting the lugs 2nd.
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Originally Posted by coreyaugustus

Those lugs look awesome, Doug. Interesting design.

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Cliff my student created the design himself. I have grid templates of each blank lug socket that can be printed onto vellum paper (it is somewhat translucent and can be erased many times) that are twice life size. He creates/draws his asymmetrical design on the template. The large size makes it much easier to draw. It is then reduced to life size on a Xerox type copier that prints the design onto sticky backed label paper and applied to the lug. He then used drills, a Dremel, a jeweler's saw and files to carve the shape.

Doug, I wish I had the time to come up! In fact after this "episode" I was thinking about making arrangements to come back and be taught to paint!!!
I am going the lug lining route. In fact on my way to the bike shop this morning I am stopping at an art store to buy a "fluid writer pen". Saw Brian Chapman use one on a video so I thought I would give it a shot. As for paint I am thinking an enamel.
Thoughts??

I've been building strange things professionally for over 30 years, and used a lot of different paints and coatings. The best paint I've ever used for brush application is 1-shot oil based lettering enamel, sold for the sign painting industry, available through some art supply stores (pretty sure Dick Blick handles it) and commercial sign supply businesses. It flows out eliminating brush strokes better than any other paint I've used, color coverage is excellent, ( hence the name) and they have a variety of additives for flow/dry time. Another advantage is they are sold in as small as a 4oz can, so you don't need to pay for a full quart when you only need a couple of ounces.