My guest this week is painter Rudi Jung of Black Magic Paint. Jung caught my eye in 2017 with a frame he painted for Chris Bishop. It was a mostly black frame and fork, but had a red-orange-yellow fade through a design that had the look of wood grain. It’s was eye-catching in the extreme. Making the bike even more notable was the fact that the Bishop down tube logo featured gold leaf. I’d only seen one other painter use gold leaf and that was frame builder Brian Baylis. In fact, Jung had used variated gold leaf and because of the paint he laid over the gold leaf, I wasn’t absolutely certain what it was and had to ask. The fact that he didn’t just lay down gold leaf and then a few layers of clear coat to call it good was the very thing that made his work so notable.
That frame, shown above, would go on to win the Best Finish category at the North American Handmade Bicycle Show that year.
In both 2018 and 2019, Jung and his mates at Black Magic Paint have continued to show up with bikes that stretch the bounds of what you’d expect to see on a bicycle frame. In addition to working with wet paint, Jung will also powder coat frames, cerakote them, anodize them and more. What is even more impressive if the way he will mix those different media in a single frame when his creative urge thinks it’s called for.
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The Pull is brought to you by the North American Handmade Bicycle Show, the world’s premiere gathering of frame builders and frame building enthusiasts. The 2020 show will take place March 20th to 22nd at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas Texas. We hope to see you there.
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