Ok, ok... back at it again...

It's been a couple very busy weeks and bikes have gone unbuilt, and projects have been delayed.  But there is hope.  The GT Zaskar project is progressing nicely and is back on track.  I bought this bike for a local South Bay "Customer" who wants a nice city bike with an industrial feel to it.  The bike came with a host of period correct parts but they were mostly trash.  It also had a rather decent Rock Shox Mag-20 that I'll rescue for a future built, but this 1992/93 Zaskar will get a most appropriate GT Bologna rigid fork which is on it's way over from the UK.

Here are some quick before deails of the frame.  It was in good shape, but had a lot of pitting and a few scratches. 

Ok, so that's the sorry before.  Since then I've stripped all the decals (don't worry I've sources New Old Stock - NOS GT Zaskar decals to replace them with) and sanded the frame down.  The original finish on these GT was Ball Burnished, which is not something I can duplicate, at least not at this price point (keeping the final under $500) so instead I'm going  to sand it over with some finer sand paper, the scotchbrite and ultimately polish (slightly) with some Mothers Aluminum polish.  The buyer wants a shiny, but not chrome look.

When working with aluminum or other bare metals it's important to sand in one direction, and in the case of bikes you want to go with the tubing as opposed to against it.  Most of the swirls will come out during the polishing phase, but it saves time.

Here are some after sanding, but before polish pictures:

Those are some awesome welds!!

My first mountain bike was a GT Karakoram and I still love the Triple Triangle design!!

So, the plan this week is to finish the sanding and polishing and start to build it up.  The remaining parts and components will all be black to offset the bare Aluminum finish and will hopefully make a great combination!!

Looking forward to finishing this one!!