I took the first actual steps to assembling Hornsby tonight, although admittedly they were baby steps. I used a heat gun to remove the warning labels (legal bumf) from the frame before applying my own, much more appealing sticker.

I started with a small warning label on the fork, for reasons that will be apparent soon. The label was fairly isolated, although there’s a Surly logo not too far away.

Using a very restricted nozzle on the heat gun, I was able to heat up the warning label without affecting the Surly logo. After a minute or so I peeled off the warning label with no damage to the logo.

While I was at it, I had to admire the triangular cut-out work for the dropout adjacent to the brake mounting bracket. Loving my new Surly so far!

The small fork label was just practice for what was to come: the obnoxious label on the seat tube. I wanted practice before tackling this, because it was just opposite the logo for Hornsby himself! With confidence that the heat gun’s effective area was very limited, I gave the obnoxious label a minute or so of the hearth’s blast. It was only when I tried to peel the label off that I realized it was actually three separate labels. They all came off in one piece, but left a considerable amount of sticky residue.

I spent some time rubbing and scraping off the residue before I was satisfied. Then I wiped the frame with a mild detergent to remove any finger oils before proceeding.

In place of the warning labels, I added one of several stickers I’ve received with various deliveries from Blue Lug. I kind of favour this one, which I’ve dubbed Blue Lug-kun.