I stripped my Aventon Cordoba

The result! It catches the light very well, so the downtube is completely blown out in this picture. Sweet.

Before. It's a 2016 Aventon Cordoba. I bought it as a complete but the frameset, seattube, and stem are the only remaining original parts. The yellow is quite nice, but there are more scuffs and dings than this picture leads on. The loud colors are cool, but I'm not fast enough for yellow.

I've always loved how these cranks catch the sun when I'm riding, so I thought the frame would be pretty slick if it did the same. The goal was to give the frame's material it's own look, but have the reflectiveness of the cranks.

First step, take everything off. Luckily there aren't many parts on a fixed gear bike. I can only imagine the agony of doing this to a full sus. mountain bike. If I had to do this again I'd buy the right tool to knock the headset bearings out. I didn't damage them, but I was pretty nervous hearing the hammer blows reverberating through my most loved bike.

When I looked online, I read about people getting their aluminum frames bead blasted to remove the paint, which doesn't sit well with me because the surface might be fatigued. To each their own, some paint jobs are much harder to remove than this one, I went the chemical route for stripping.

I used an aerosol paint stripper to take the majority of the paint off. I would recommend this sort of product to anyone brave enough to deal with the dangers associated with this stuff because it is FAST. Paint would start flaking up within a minute of being sprayed, and could be wiped off maybe 5 minutes later. I wish I had taken a video of the paint bubbling up from the frame, it was pretty impressive but also scary.

Scrape scrape scrape. I used a plastic putty knife so that I could put some elbow grease into the stubborn bits without scratching the softer-than-steel aluminum. Once I started handling the frame to spray the more challenging areas, I realized that my nitrile gloves weren't enough. My gloved hands burned shortly after touching the paint stripper, so I avoided touching the frame while I was working. If you ever use an aggressive chemical stripper, use specifically labeled chemical resistant gloves and work carefully.

I ran out of the spray-on stripper as I was nearing the end of this stage, so I pulled out the brush-on stripping gel that I was going to use for the stubborn areas and tight spaces.

This gel brushes on in thin layers that dry quickly compared to globs of the stuff. The gel doesn't loosen the paint when dry, so globs it is! I applied the gel to areas where the paint was still sticking every 30 minutes or so, checking each time so I'd know which areas were coming up. It only took a few hours to work all of the paint off. There are some benefits to having a cheap paint job after all!

Scraping the paint out of the rear brake mount I've never used was pretty infuriating, but patience prevailed. I considered leaving the paint on in this tiny area because it would have worked with the gold chain and yellow accented seatpost binder. That was my laziness speaking, could you tell? There was no way I could let someone riding behind me think I missed a spot in my painstaking stripping job.

So I skipped a few picture opportunities. Between the last picture and this one, I sanded the frame by hand going from 800 grit to 2000 grit. My hands and clothes were covered in aluminum dust, and my phone would have been too if I stopped to take pictures. Sorry about that. I'm actually not sorry, sanding is really boring.

This is the finish after 2000 grit. I can already feel the internet abrasives professionals telling me how bad my job looks. You know what? It does look bad. The headtube welds were difficult to sand consistently. If you ever sand something like this, use sanding sponges. I would have had to order them online, and they're quite expensive. For some reason the local hardware store didn't think they'd sell any 2000 grit sanding sponges, and I'm with them on that theory.

Look, I buffed it! I had to use buffer pads that attach to a drill because I couldn't get metal polishing paste at the store. I would have loved to do the polishing by hand because the corners would have been much more consistent. At least the motorized method went faster.

Close up of the finish. I didn't want a mirror finish, only shine, so I left the factory paint prepping marks in. They are more consistent than anything I'd do, and they also reduce the visibility of fingerprints since polished aluminum is a fingerprint magnet.

It doesn't look glossy straight on, but has a gloss look to it when looking down the tubes. Much more interesting than I was expecting.

Time to build the bike back up! I promise this isn't some sort of marketing for vittoria. I kept getting goosebumps when I'd step back from building and look at the progress. The frame in yellow never gave me chills when I looked at it! Also you can see what fingerprints look like on this finish because I grabbed the seat tube quite a few times putting the cranks on. Just imagine how bad those would look on a mirror finish, yuck. Also vittoria, pm me if you think I deserve some compensation here. A pair of G+ corsas cost me 140 bucks at the local bike shop. That's the retail value of this frame new. At least I don't skid at the track!

If you see this seatstay bridge in a race, I'm not the one you should be worried about.

I think this picture demonstrates that reflective property of the finish I was going on about earlier. The head tube is pretty matte looking, but you can see the chain's reflection in the downtube!

The shininess of my frame finally matches my cranks. Goal achieved. I'm now realizing that a lot of parts installed on my frame cost more than the frame on their own. My guess is that more than a few people who started with a pre-built complete find themselves in this situation too.

Here is one of the areas that I just couldn't reach with the motorized buffing setup. If I stumble on some metal polishing compound this will be the first area I do by hand.

The dropouts didn't strip very well because they have a bumpy texture that paint LOVES. They're dropouts on a inexpensive frame, so it figures. Fortunately they don't get much attention from anyone other than me.

When I started riding this bike, Aventon wasn't getting much respect online. I was nervous that I'd find something terrible hiding under the paint. I was glad to see that everything looked sound without paint. I can't speak for the welds, but this bike has taken my abuse well. I'm posting this mainly because I couldn't find any pictures of a 2016 cordoba stripped, and I'm certain someone else has had thoughts of stripping this frame with how loud all of the available colors are. So there you go, this is what you can achieve with no knowledge of metal surface work and one weekend!