Original Sunshine Colors

Submitted by maxglide on Sat, 04/16/2016 - 17:20

Hey All.... I am going to repaint my Sunshine balloon tire as it has been totally rattle canned at some point. It will be a good practice run for a resto I want to do on an Elgin Twin Bar.

Does anyone have info on original color schemes that they were offered in? I've seen red/maroon and white. Any other combos?

Thanks... Wayne

There's a pic of it in another thread in this forum.

 

7 Comments

Submitted by Brian R. on Sat, 04/16/2016 - 23:21.

Hi Wayne, The 1953 (final year) S.W. catalogue that I receive thanks to Sunnyboy shows two colour combinations for the men's bikes: maroon with ivory trim, and deep blue with ivory trim. There was also a sky blue colour but that was reserved for the ladies' bikes. Before spraying another layer, consider removing a layer or two of paint in one spot t to see what colour the bike was originally. If you decide to strip it down to bare metal and start over, oven cleaner and a pressure washer works well (although not at the same time - you don't' want to get oven cleaner in your eyes). Good luck, and post your results if you like.

Submitted by maxglide on Sun, 04/17/2016 - 01:05.

Hi Brian...

Yeah, there is no paint under the rattle can. Not even primer. Looks like they just stripped it and spray bombed it. 

I thought there was a blue... I'm gonna go with that....maybe like a cobalt blue and ivory. I will definitely post pics of the work Just trying to deal with getting the handlebar stem un seized. While waiting for penetrant to work, working on all other stuff...

Completely rebuilt the pedals, polished the crank (it's even scripted Sunshine!), chainring, pulled the seat apart. 

sunring.jpg sun_pedal.jpg sunring.jpg

Submitted by maxglide on Sun, 04/17/2016 - 01:08.

Oops.... posted same photo twice.... here's a pic of the scripted crank.

 

suncrank.jpg

Submitted by Brian R. on Sun, 04/17/2016 - 19:07.

Nice progress. Deep blue is pretty vague - it could be like navy blue. I look forward to seeing it when it's done.

Submitted by Brian R. on Sun, 04/17/2016 - 22:12.

Here is a photo of a blue men's Sunshine. It looks to be original paint, so you can see the shade of blue.

 

sunshineblue.jpg

Submitted by maxglide on Sun, 04/17/2016 - 23:56.

That's nice. I was thinking cobalt blue and ivory.... similar to that.

Wayne

Submitted by Brian R. on Mon, 04/18/2016 - 09:08.

I had to do a Google Image search for cobalt blue because I didn't know what it was. It's a nice colour and I agree it's close to the original. Good luck, I'm sure it will look great.