About Me

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Back in my hometown of Jonesboro., Arkansas, United States
My name is Dimitri Harris and I have been building frames for over 9 years now. I learned the basics after spending two weeks with Koichi Yamaguchi. He is one of the most interesting people I have ever met and I am thankful to have worked with him. Since then I have just been building one frame after another and learning as much as possible along the way. I build steel fillet-brazed frames that go by the name of MEECH, which is an old nickname that I have had since I was a kid. I build mostly cyclocross frames because I love their versatility however I also do road,single-speed, and mountain bikes as well. Custom frames start around $1400. All the frames are handmade by me here in Jonesboro, Arkansas. I am insured and guarantee all of my work so if you are in the market for a custom steel frame I would be glad to build it for you. I am also building frames from carbon fiber so if you would like to ride a prototype frame give me a shout. Thanks for stopping by. You can email me at meech151@hotmail.com or call (870)897-6703 or visit www.meechcustombicycles.com Thanks.

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Going to Paint School

Here are a couple of pics of Branton's cross frame after the primer has been laid.  This is the first frame that I have actually taken a part in painting.  Actually I won't be doing any of the painting, Paul just let me shoot a coat of the epoxy primer and I'm doing the prep work before the paint goes down.  I mentioned a while back that I was interested in learning to paint so Paul and Wayne said they would show me a few things.  I looked into some auto-body shop courses at first but I would have wasted a lot of time learning things that didn't pertain to painting bicycles, so this way I'm learning from a professional who knows the ins and outs of solely painting the bike frame.

The black primer is the epoxy primer, super-tough and seals the frame.  If you're ever going to strip the paint off a frame and it has this stuff on it, your in for a lot of work.

The grey primer is the filler primer and its a bit thicker and fills in any small voids.  But don't think that this stuff is gonna do magic.  It amazes me how a small imperfection is magnified by paint.  I used to think that paint would just fill in any little spot and smooth it out, nope, all wrong Cochise.  I spend hours filing, rounding, and smoothing out fillets until I think that it is perfectly smooth and then paint will make you feel like a total failure.I'm all sure that by practicing this painting  prep work that its also gonna help me in cleaning up my fillet-brazing.  I've never used any Bondo products on my frames and I never will.

This area still needs some work so thats what I'm fixing to go to work on this morning.
This is the goal I'm shooting for in time.  Its a long way down the road but if I get to where I can paint a frame this good then it will be mission accomplished.  On the last post I forgot to say thanks to Paul and Wayne for the excellent paint job and all the help they have been willing to show me.  Thats the sign of a true professional, someone who is open and unafraid to show you what they know and how to do it is extremely confident in what they do, for the most part they are always a step ahead of the rest and I'm glad I have these guys painting my frames.  Thanks guys!

Ace's Wild Custom
Mountain Home, Arkansas
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