Powdercoat

Hi Mcr lot - any recommendations for a cheap reasonable powdercoaters!?

Ashton Powdercoaters are the goto

Really reasonably priced and easy enough to get to on tram or bus. I've had a frame done and it's been spot on. @Lukas has more experience than me with them.

Yup, quite a few people on here have been and had joy.
Taken half a dozen frames and not been disappointed.
Some tips:

• Loosely install some old BB cups if you can (i.e. to be removed by hand), to preserve the thread during blasting/stripping. Explain this when you drop the frame off.
  
• Be prepared for a bit of prep work before you rebuild it: washing the blast media from inside the frame, chase/facing the BB threads/shell/HT yourself or at LBS.
  
  

May sound arduous compared to the services touted on here by Armourtex, Vaz Bros., etc... But (if you can do the post-process prep yourself) IMO, this is more than mitigated by the price and quality of the work. Around £40 for F&F, possibly less.

Cool thanks for the replies :). Just taken a look at their website. £40 is cheap but I can't chase and face myself. No tools.
No bb cups either to sacrifice.
Has anyone tried filling the bb head tube with anything else. Cloths?

I did neither. After it was all done I installed everything myself and all was fine, the bike has done thousands of miles since. I'd advise Lukas' way though, might as well do things properly.

Chicago innit.

They have rubber bungs to prevent ingress when applying the dry powder, but these have to be removed before it goes to the oven. Some molten powder might flow into the BB threads, seat tube or wherever, hence suggesting to chase threads... Or buy a cheap half round (a.k.a. bastard-) file from Wilko to remove unwanted material from the seat/head tube. It's not possible for APC to prevent this ingress from occurring.
Each time it's happened to me, I grabbed a scalpel and simply cut the unwanted coating out of the threads, which didn't take long. Don't worry too much about it though - @alialias' experience was clearly a good one, and a bit of prep is to be expected with any refinish before rebuilding.

Bastard is to do with the roughness of the file, not it's shape, but a few files are useful things to have.

You could also try Chicago Coatings as @snottyotter suggested.
I've never been, but have been put off as friends' experiences have suggested it's pot luck whether you get a good job or a bad one (ranging from a great, cheap job [£25ish] to a horrid orange peel finish, and a BB shell, HT and ST filled with the coating, applied so thick that it's extremely difficult to remove).
I've had a few of frames done at Stockport Powder Coating, which quality-wise, I was pleased with at the time, but found that (at the time, 2-3 years ago), they didn't have a list of what colour codes they had in stock at any given time, so I'd email or call up to ask, the owner would say, 'yep we've got that', then I'd turn up to drop the frame to be told they didn't have it in. Being a bit fussy about colour and whatnot, having researched and decided on a particular RAL code in advance, I just decided to go elsewhere.

Best advice, if you have the time/a free weekday, is visit to each place, chat to someone about what you want, and ask to see examples of their work, ask for a rough price, and make your decision from there.

Didn't know that! Thought it was just because it was not all one thing nor the other. Cheers!

Yeah, there's a technical explanation I can't remember, generally they're pretty rough but not the roughest I think.

Thanks for the advice will have a little mooch about. Need to work on getting my seatpost out now!