Being a B.O.B (Brother on a Budget), I’m always looking for ways to make my dollar stretch and of course, get the most of it. So one of the things I wanted to do was personalize my bike without going broke. As it is, its pretty much an RL bike…meaning its plain and simple. I did get a white chain and white bars to make it sweeter.
So here’s what I did…took my cranks off the bike. I had started this blinging process a few days ago and you can get a hint from the left arm what the cranks will look like.
I then took some $5.00 paint stripper that I bought from Wal-Mart and treated the cranks.
Once the cranks have been treated, you’ll see that almost all the paint comes right off.
I then sanded the cranks down with 2000 grit wet/dry sand paper.
Put in some elbow grease and this magical stuff called Mother’s….
Viola!
Here’s the final product. I actually need to go over it with the wet dry paper and polish it up again. But since I was up until midnight doing this, I’ll save it for another day.
The cost of this project was $5.00, that was for the cost of the stripper. I already had the other stuff such as the Mother’s and paper. But if you were to go out and get all that, I figure you’d spend no more than $15.00 in making your cranks look sweet.
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I think you can add more ‘bling’ to your cranks if you get an ‘XTR’ sticker and place them on the cranks… Or I can sign them for you, then your will be really on the ‘bling’
oooh XTR sticker…that’s like how people like to put “turbo” or “5.0″ on their Nissan Sentra…
Mothers on a polishing disc and a drill would cut out some of that elbow grease. It would also give it that extra “bling” you’re looking for.
Nice project; gonna do it very soon to a set of cranks I just bought my wife. I’ll skip the XTR sticker [:P] but I think I’ll pick up a polishing disc to take some of the effort out of it.
Shoot, just carve “Zinn” in them with a Dremel tool and everyone will think they’re custom titanium cranks from Lennard.
What if I put something Campagnolo…ooh then I’d be a real trend setter. Or I can paint it purple and make it look anodized…
If you put Campagnolo on it, folks will just think you scored an Ebay win…Campy hasn’t made MTB components since the early 90s (Record OR).
I know…that’s why I said Campy. Now if I can just make them look like a pair of Jeff Jones XTR cranks…
http://www.bikemagic.com/news/images/ib05_jonesxtr_big.jpg
I’m in the middle of this project right now. I’ll post a link once I’m done. I was hoping to strip the paint off tonight, but it looks like it’ll have to sit overnight for the stripper to work. How long did it take your stripper to loosen the paint enough for removal?
Aaron,
It took less than 15 mins for all the paint to come off. Well I take that back, it still had bits of paint here and there, but that stuff I was able to sand off.
All done! Before and after pics:
http://www.one9.us/images/bike/polishedcrankset.jpg
WOW! I’m VERY impressed!
Aaron, VERY NICE
WOW. Great job Aaron!
Thanks, guys! Here’s a link to my project and lots more pics:
http://one9.us/blog/cycling/polished-crankset
Thanks for the inspiration, RL!
Dude you totally took it to a higher level! I’m really impressed. Now I have to make mine shine like yours.
Don’t wear yourself out like I did.
So, were you able to get into all those tight crevices on the back of the spider? I hated that section the most.
[...] was inspired to do this project after seeing RL Policar’s How To Bling Your Bike For Less Than $5.00 post on MtnBikeRiders.com last [...]
[...] old school! Shimano LX brakes, front and back with all new Jagwire cables and housing. My DIY polished cranks from a previous project with a 32t ring. I kept the OEM rear Alivio derailleur. Look at my shiny new 7 speed cassette. [...]