Painting frame?

People have been bagging Vaz. Which has got me nervous.

I have not had it resprayed yet. It is a friend of mine who paints cars returning a favour. From what I've seen that Vaz doesn't seem to great but sounds like people are getting what they pay for. I have seen a few places on the internet that will powdercoat bikes for pretty cheap (around the £45 mark) but you would have postage on top of that if it wasn't local. search on yell.com for metal finishers in your area...should be a few that will strip and or paint a frame for you. specialized bike places seem to be quite expensive but at least they know what they are doing. my local finishers that bike shops recommend is c&g finishers in Liverpool and they charge £75 to powdercoat a frame...bit pricey in my opinion.

that's crazy money for painting a bike.. especially since a lot of us ride frames that cost half of that!

But whatever looks good to you, I guess.. On a side note, a friend of mine just sprayed his bmx with hammerite black, it looks great ;)

I paid $60AUD to have Vegemite done. That's about £20 for gloss black powder coat frame and fork.

i thought it was silly money...that's why I bought paint for £15 and am getting my mate to do it. the back-street metal finishers were cheaper than the specialist bike finishers but I had visions of them bodging it. will post pics of the bike when it's done. nice one for the help!!

I don't mean base colour- i'm talking on the top tube for example.
Car paint, model paint, or standard stuff.
any help would be useful

Hi all,

Can anyone out there comment on the quality of armoutec's frame coating? Bob Jackson will charge £130 single colour plus lug lining and head tube badge (don't much like their modern down tube logo), whereas armoutec is 65 without the logo or lining.

Did have an interesting talk with armoutec, if I can find a paint that can withstand 200 celcius I can line the lugs between coats as an experiment.

Main thing is the quality of powder coating versus enamel.

Thoughts?

mercian did a beautiful job on my frame for £80 [no lug lining tho']

You can still get the nicer old style Jackson decals if you want.

OCD You can still get the nicer old style Jackson decals if you want.

Not according to Jackson, where from please please please?

any advice on the best cheapest way to paint my bike?!

cheers :)

armourtex 40 quids. sorted

can of spray paint.

cheapest is probably using a rattle can.
best finish will be powder coated.
use the search, there's loads of treads on this...
k

armourtex is actually £45 for a powdercoat, or £60 with a coat of lacquer on top (which is definitely worth having). they're really nice people, their work is very good and they're speedy too.

the cheapest way is to spraypaint it yourself, get some good quality paint, from HQ in brixton or 4d model shop near tower bridge, it will cost about £3.50 a can, then take off everything you can from the bike and mask off everything else, make sure the bike is clean, you probably want a layer or two of primer, which you can get from a hardware shop. and then paint the bike, dont spray a lot on in one go, do a number of thin layers leaving it do dry inbetween, then put a clear layer over the top if you want.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Bike-Painting-Tips/

What did you get in the end?

ah have yet to get a good one - just got one off the flea market for the time being! decided to wait until next month when the loan comes in!!

Whilst bored the other day I tried to pick out the lug work on my Carlton with white enamel paint, the result is, erm, a little shite. Since the frame needs a respray soonish anyway has anyone got any advice? Can detailed lug work be powdercoated a different colour from the tubes, or is spraying the only way forward to get a good finish with fine detail??

If you see a red Carlton in SE London that looks like someone has attacked it with Tipex please don't laugh and point. This is what I need to paint (pre DIY painting madness): http://velospace.org/node/8479 (see thumbnails for closeup)

you cannot do different color powder coat.

lug lining is hard. i've done it a few times and the best result was when i let it dry then go around with a sharp blade cleaning up the edges ;)

One of those artist pen type things which are two bits of metal very close together which you dip into paint is meant to be the best thing for lug lining. You can adjust the thickness of the line by how far apart the mbits of metal are.. You can see one being used in these photos (large images so I only linked to them). I don't know the name of the type of pen thing but maybe someone here will.

http://www.blackbirdsf.org/taylor/images/thompson/luglining1.jpg
http://www.blackbirdsf.org/taylor/images/thompson/luglining2.jpg

you cannot do different color powder coat.

you can, just most powder coaters cant be bothered to do something so fiddly.
It just takes some carefull masking. You do just mean full lugs, BB, heatube etc right?

Goldlining is to be done with some enamel and a fien brush obviously.

pinstriping brush from any good art shop is always the best to get. go for a 1.2 mm and use a thick paint. get some practice in first though as it's an aquired skill that takes a while to get right.

Ideally I'd like all lug work (BB/headtube etc.) a different colour, +/- lug lining as well. Can you paint/spray conventional paint over powder coating or does it not work? Am I right in thinking that Armourtex are the guys to go with for powdercoating? Can anyone recomend a good conventional spraypainter as well?

Thanks.