Custom Paint - Workshop specials.

Yeah I’d be up for that.

Does anybody know who does the paint for Hetchins?

Question for those who have cherished paintjobs, how do you protect them?
Worried about lock rub and other bikes clattering them whilst stored in the same racks.

Not sure modern high end paint is tough wearing, people baby these or just choose to accept some wear.

If you cherish the paint, that's not a bike you leave locked up.

I vote in favour of letting it get a rash/patina/usage marks.... but I have the tools to re-do it.

High end custom finishing isn't cheap so it's not ridiculous to want to protect it.

At our paint shop, we recommend Cycle Wrap UK. There's even a 10% discount if you invoke our name.

It's a super robust clear film wrap. Once it's on, you can't see it. It's used on F1 cars and spacecraft apparently.

Their site has all the info and Chris who runs it is a top guy.

They even have a non gloss version for psychopaths who choose to have a matte finish.

Once I go fully raw, do I have to fiddle with primer and stuff?

I was going to use that spray.bike stuff.

The other option is I can save myself the effort/time/etc and get it blasted for £30.

Sanding a brown Langster? All the cool kids ride brown Langsters.

I got tired of feeling like I was riding a turd.

Aren't we all, in a very real sense, just riding turds in this life?

It's 10pm. You can't get philosophical at this hour ... it will disrupt your beauty sleep (and mine).

Spray.Bike reckons you can paint direct to substrate. The blasting will leave a pitted surface that will give a uniform surface for the key.

Rawing by hand will avoid that pitting and allow you to polish and leave areas exposed if you wished.

If I had access to a £30 media blasters I'd raw by hand, polish as best I could, slap some vinyl masks on the shiny bits, get it blasted, then remove the stickers to reveal the graphics in the polished areas. You get to add branding/logos/flourishes/design elements that are much more resilient than paint because they're in the metal. It's a finish that can only really be achieved on alu/stainless/Ti. And it matches every colour...

Here's an example... https://www.instagram.com/p/Bd2g5nnnRBi/?utm_source=ig_share_sheet&igshid=1l2awb55lr1pq

If the frame is metal get it shot blasted, cheap & quick.

Will gaffer/duct tape dissolve the lacquer it is applied on? (20 days)

Is this because you plan to do it or you've already done it?
I'd urge you against using anything not specifically designed to be used over paint and after a suitable curing period. Even 3M Helitape has it's issues... it's very strong and could pull paint if not used properly.

It depends on a great many factors to be honest.

A traditional cromovelato finish would likely peel off because it's just paint on a shiny chrome finish and the bond isn't very strong.

I've seen paint come off a bike after a small sticker has been applied and I've also seen stickers and tape peeled off a bike after many years and not affect it.

The glue on the back of the tape is not likely to have any dissolving effect on the finish but instead what will happen is that the solvents leaving the paint finish will not be able to travel through the barrier created by the tape and they'll be trapped there... the solvents will have an effect on the glue and on the finish itself which will soften and they can potentially fuse together. Then in removing the tape, you'll be pulling off the clear and even the paint if they're chemically bonded well.

Applying any kind of to a custom wet finish must only be done when the frameset is fully cured naturally. Oven assisted curing is a great tool but it doesn't make for the strongest and most robust finish.

At Cole Coatings Workshop, we recommend to all customers that they don't build their bike for at least three weeks in order to allow the finish to reach its optimal strength but in a perfect world, customers would wait longer!

The more complex your finish is, a greater amount of product will be applied and in turn you then have more solvent to deal with. So a single colour finish with a second colour graphic would have less solvent in it than say, a four or five colour camouflage finish and in this case, you should leave the camo frameset longer. There are less obvious examples of finishes that have multiple layers... candy finishes for example utilise multiple layers... fades too have much more solvent if they're done properly. These types of finish really shouldn't have tape on them if it can be avoided.

If it's something you've already done, I'd suggest gently heating the tape to soften the glue and carefully removing it rather than whipping it off like a plaster on a skinned knee.

If you've had a frame powdercoated, these rules don't apply in the same way... unless you've had a clearcoat over the powder but this is not best practice.

What's the tape for, can I ask?

Hope that's useful.

Bookmarked! & Rep!

What's the tape for, can I ask?

I want to mask off areas on my bike, where a handlebar-bag will rub on a 15 days tour. Mostly front of headtube.

This is the paint - maybe an armourtex job some years ago

If that came from Armourtex, I would guess that it isn't "paint" in the strictest sense... it's a powdercoat. The powder is attracted to the substrate using an electro-static process and then baked.

There isn't a solvent suspension to hold pigment so you don't have to worry about that being an issue.

If you want to take care of the finish and protect it, hit up Chris at Cyclewrap UK - https://www.cyclewrap.co.uk/. He offers a discount if you mention Cole Coatings Workshop.

Alternatively, you can buy 3M Helitape on eBay, cut it to size and use that.

There are some lovely faded stripes across my/Dammit's old caad12 where he used 3m helitape for a framebag. Is paint not powder though.

The Amourtex frame I had powder coated was tough as old boots in comparison to pretty much ever other frame I've had since.

Would the 1litre kit from specialist paints cover a full frame and forks? Two?

Is there a way to realistically work this out or is it more based on experience?

Contents Outlined here:
https://www.specialistpaints.com/collections/specialist-paints-featured/products/candy-paint

P.s sorry to hijack!

Lots of parts of the process will alter how much product you use.
The gun set up and application technique being major factors.

Regarding your project, candy is translucent and gets darker the more you apply... you stop when you're happy with the colour. Here's an example of that... there's only one green being used, it's applied in multiple coats with masking between coats to give different depths. https://colecoatingsworkshop.com/#/sausage-dog-camo/

With that in mind, you could end up using a little or a lot.

The size of the fan will determine how much you'll lose in 'overspray' and 'fall out'.

Also, when you're applying layers, you might find that the junctions are darker than the tubes because you'll hit these more on your passes.

I assume, the 1 litre of thinner will be what you use to mix both the silver base and the candy in order to make them gun ready so you couldn't possibly use everything in the kit anyway.

That can happen for sure.

Have you seen old neon MTBs that are lighter on the top than they are underneath?

Lots of paints have poor UV protection and lose their colour. The helitape just altered how much light could hit the paint in that specific area so you get fading rather than colour being removed when the tape comes off.

The stuff from Chris at Cycle Wrap is supposed to be really good for UV and helps prevent this effect... I don't work for the guy btw... I'm just passing on what he tells us!

Neon is fade tastix.

The best things in life are fleeting.

...or something #neonphilosophy

Looks like Astana have been cheating on @Hoops by using Fat Creations too. Although this never saw light of day.

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They haven’t cheated on me, they are free to use whoever they want for their custom projects. But yeah, that’s nothing to do with me. I wasn’t willing to do it for the money they were willing to pay. It’s just the way things go sometimes with business.