Painting frame?

hey guys, i was wondering if any of you painted your bikes before?

I currently have a dark blue Fuji Track bike with the frame tapped up in black but wanted sorta to change to a lighter color, like white/vanilla/baby blue/pink?! lol

Can anyone gimme some tips or direct me as to what i should get etc...

ive done it and it chipped really easily.
from what i know and have heard you are best of saving a bit more
and getting it done properly.
baby blue powdercoat looks lovely.

get it done propperly!!

yeah i was gunna d.i.y it but i've oppted to letting the pros handle it...check the london bassed frame sprayers thread thats how i chose where to go.

what sorta place can you go to for this? what's the price range? :O

ya baby blue me lovey dovey lol

ok turd, i'll check it out now :) thanks!

i met danny wainwright a few weeks ago(the pro skate, highest ollie etc)
and he had a langster that he straight away got powder coated babyblue
and it looked very nice:) let me sit on it aswell!
it looked suprisingly unlike a langster with tiny straight bars BUT
he was running it on the freewheel:(

ooo that sounds sweet - i think im gonna give a call to Vaz when i get the monies! :P

Powdercoat is sweet if you only want non-metallic.
I got my frame painted cheap by a crash repairs shop but admittedly this was in AUS.
Cost me about 30 quid but was pretty soft. Looked sweet though.

yeah right that looks so nice

it does look good and all.. But me personally, I want it to look half good without getting nicked.. Bought a spray paint can at brick lane market for 2 quid, gave it a good spray and was riding the bike the next day.. Now if I was feeling generous, I would've bought 2 cans of paint and a can or two of clear laquer, gave it 2 good sprays and at least 3 coats of clear. It would've looked so pretty and it would hold up fairly well..

Obviously not as good as a £50 professional paint job, but I'd rather spend that money on some shoes, or food!

shoes or food shoes or food.....thats a tough one

hey I get free food at work!

First I'd like to say hello from a wet and miserable Liverpool were I have recently noticed a couple of bikes running fixed/single cogs. I've got a fully stock 07 langster (i know most people aren't fans of langsters...especially not the rusty 07 one) for my move down to london. I thought this was the best and most hastle-free way into fixed-gear riding and unlike most people, I like compact frames with sloping tubes. I am planning on changing a few bits (got some nice carbon riser bars, ditching the back brake and new tyres) as well as giving it a full respray and was after some advice:
I am getting the frame painted by a mate who paints cars. He has said that we will sand the frame down but not to the aluminium...just to the base coat of original paint (he said it will have been baked on so should be a good base). Does this sound right? Or will I have to strip it to the bare aluminium which I know is an effort?
I also want the fork painting. Does this have to be stripped or can it just be sanded, primed and painted? Would like it to be stripped to the carbon but I can't imagine that working...just need to get rid of the skulls that specialized have plastered all over it.
Any help would be appreciated...nice one,
JoeyBoswell

i would of thought it would be a bit difficult "sanding" it down to a certain coat of paint......but im not an expert:)

think he means just taking the lacquer off. i said that I would give him the frame stripped down to the aluminium but he said that the original paint would be a better fix to the frame than he could get on the bare aluminium. kind of makes sense but I'm not an expert either.

Yeah that is fine. You want to take of the lacquer and the glossy finish off the current paint job. Once sanded down the frame should be smooth, but not as smooth as the metal would be. This allows the primer to grip onto it better than the bare aluminium frame.

yeah, usually the stock paint is the best you'll ever get, so it makes sense to use it as a better base, it will probably work out better than the aluminium :)

modern off the shelf alu primers aren't too great (the old ones that worked are banned now iirc) so your best bet is to take it down to the primer thats already there.

and if i were you i'd leave the carbon well alone. its notoriously dodgy if the weave gets damaged and i wouldn't chance it. get some different forks if you're fussed but by the time you've learned to correctly set up a headset you're halfway to being able to build a fix from scratch ;)

cheers for confirming that my mate isn't as daft as he looks! I will let him sand it down to the primer. don't know what to do about the fork. do you think that they can be just primed and painted over the current finish? whatever I do, paint the fork or leave it, I am goin to have to remove the headset and fork so I think I will be leaving that to the pros. What exactly will I have to remove (around the headset) to paint the frame / fork?

Langsters rock....ride and be proud joey.

Yup, Langsters are fine ('cept the design of the London), great intro to fixed. Give it six months though, and you'll be itching to build your own...:)

What colour you going?

get some emory cloth, it's the easest way of sanding paint off of tubes.

yeah...I'm not shy about riding a Langster...and I wanted an aluminium frame with sloping tubes. It has everything that I need and was only £350 new. No need waiting for the 08 Langsters as they have exactly the same sec I think but with paint-jobs even worse than the rust and skulls. I had a nightmare deciding what paint to go for...I originally wanted a pearlescent white or black. Looking through the tiny chips in the paint shop and realising that the colours looked completely different in the sunlight caused me to settle for a 'metallic pearlescent pewter' for chrysler cars, that will be coated in a thick layer of lacquer. God knows what it will look like but at least it will be plain.

Joeyboswell

Who did your paint job and are you happy with it? (seems to be the debate at the moment)

I need to get my new build re-sprayed (but need a tad of brazing/a couple of mounts and clips cleaned off)