Matt black paint

I thought that Armourtex charged a flat rate for a number of parts?

They gave that to me s a worst case scenario price over the phone, as they wanted to see the parts before confirming . . .

Presumably any dents or holes (waterbottle bosses etc) that I have filled would be stripped out by the blasting proccess prior to coating?

You need specific filler if you are powder coating, your standard bog used for car panel repairs
and similar will not powder coat due to eing non conductive and probably crack out due to the heat of baking.

Useful, thanks.

matt or satin? much difference?

Matt is proper none reflective, thing a blackboard or soot. satin has a slight sheen to it. matt looks very cool but gets dirty and marked easy and then tends to look a bit shitty IMHO, satin looks almost as cool and IMHO stays looking good longer. if you want the proper rat/beater look matt finish will get you there pretty quickly!!

matt is easily soiled cos stuff sticks to it easily. which is why its used for blackboards. satin as BillB pointed out is slightly shiny and far less rough and dirt sticks to it less. satin is the way forward, unless you want your bike to write notes on with a chalk pen lol

Armourtex are doing my frame and forks (Langster 06), stem, and cranks matt black next week whilst i am in france - will be able to post pic when back.

Charging 80 quid for the lot, but that is because Alu fram harder to prep - if it was steel the would have charged for 60 quid for the lot, or 45 for frame and forks only.

OK, so i have got my stuff back and it looks the nuts, plus they only charged me 50 quid in the end for frame, fork, bars and stem.

When i went in they had someone elses ride ready for collection in the darkest matt black they can do, and they showed me a sample of the less matt/satinish black that they said is originally a Saab colour for some under bonnet part.

I ummed and ahhed for a bit but went with the mattest finish, and am glad i did. The finish is perfect, and it looks factory quality - IMO matt black only looks shit when you diy it . . unless you like that look!

If you want it matt black then go all the way - the satin isnt matt black. I am having some other work done to it, but it will be built back up by the weekend, when am happy for you to have a look at it, i am based in Fulham.

I dont have a digi camera, but will try and borrow one and post some pics.

Armortex did a top notch job, and i will be going back to them with some bits for a custom chop i am building as i was so impressed with them.

get some Pics on the go, i would love to see the matt black finish close up. and thanks for remembering to return to the thread. Good effort VinylVillain. Nice one ! :D

yeh would love some pictures of professional and diy matt finishes.

vinylvillian, pop down to the ship hammersmith next thurs, would like to have a look myself

I'll throw some of my DMR up next week when I've got my camera back.
It was a nice powder coat.

vinylvillian, pop down to the ship hammersmith next thurs, would like to have a look myself

No probs its round corner from me

Damn! Beaten to the finish in the hip-hop-stealth-slave-bike stakes!
Mine will have to be even stealthier than vinylvillains! Seriously tho', wouldn't mind a look at some point, getting tired of waiting for a decalless matte black NJS frame to turn up in my size... Think I'll probably wind up Arrotex-ing a Fuji Track Pro...

a"decal-less matt black frame"???? geeeeeeeeez, you'll be waiting 'till yer 60 :)

a"decal-less matt black frame"???? geeeeeeeeez, you'll be waiting 'till yer 60 :)

Exactly... Tho' thinking about it, that wouldn't be too long a wait for me... I should've at least got my patience skillz down by now... ;)
A teeny one just went on njs-keirin... Sigh...

So here it is, my HHSB Langster project - its an 06 Langster, done in the mattest black you can get from Armourtex - The frame, fork, stem and bars were all done and i removed the braze ons before it was powder coated.

Its not finished yet, still need various bits, not least the essential for full slave style arrospok or similar front, and having a matt black deep v for the back laced to a velosteal ss coaster brake hub for laying down some serious skid time . . .

I have done a video too, and will post it if my computer hurrys up and uploads it . . Any marks you see are crap i picked up riding to my mates to take the photos.

Wow !!! Armourtex really do a freaking excellent job with their powder coating, how did they handle the thin alloy walls of the Langster ? Did they chemically strip it instead of bead blasting ??

Wow !!! Armourtex really do a freaking excellent job with their powder coating, how did they handle the thin alloy walls of the Langster ? Did they chemically strip it instead of bead blasting ??

Yup it looks better than i expected . . . they said it takes longer to prep an Alu frame, hence why it cost more to do than a steel frame . . . not sure what they do different, but got the impression it was more labour intensive to prep it.

Yup it looks better than i expected . . . they said it takes longer to prep an Alu frame, hence why it cost more to do than a steel frame . . . not sure what they do different, but got the impression it was more labour intensive to prep it.

I suspect they must chemically strip then etch rather than blasting it off as you could damage the thin alloy on a modern lightweight frame, whatever they did it worked !!

They are great people down there, when I dropped the stuff off they refused to take my money as a deposit until I had seen the finished pieces and was happy with it all - when I did pick it up they insisted on me checking everything first before I paid.

Brilliant service, fast and cheap and high quality, what more could you ask for, VB should ask them if they want to put up a small permanent ad in the banner to help fund this site.

Lovely job vinylvillain, me like! That paint would look awesome on a Fuji Track Pro!
Very stealthy... :)

i wanna get my frame done from them, but it's fecking miles away, and i'll have to take time off work to get there.

that has come out nice though, good job.

What pedals are those, are they just cheap BMX ones and do they take toe clips???

they look like VP 566's, and yes you can adapt toe-clips to fit, but you need the large/long cage ones.
someone else on here did so.

What pedals are those, are they just cheap BMX ones and do they take toe clips???

They are VP 566s - i have a set of DMR V12'S that will be going on there, but they are on my SS MTB at the mo . . think i paid a tenner for em. You can remove half the pins if you put straps on em, which doesnt effect the grip, but makes it a lot easier to get in and out. I am going to try some powerstraps on em, think they might compliment them pretty well.

They guys at Armoutex asked me where i had heard of them, and when i said LFGSS they said that a lot of people had mentioned the website when bringing frames in!