Best rattlecan paint for bikes?

Ah cheers mate :D I am only 14 as well!

is P38 premixed ready to rock?

here's a bike I painted and built for my sister in halfords nissan arctic white...

finish was alright, not hugely durable but has stood up to it's first year of abuse. careless locking, locks hanging off it, being hit with handbags with just a few marks.

Yeh looking quite good that!

Did you use a chain tensioner?

No chain tensioner, running a magic gear there. Basically that means by choosing a certain size cog and chainring the chain is the perfect length so doesn't need a tensioner.

How do I know whether I will need one

what kind will be suitable? Something for cars?

if you can get bondo, i'd recommend that.

I think you have horizontal dropouts, so you can slide your wheel back for tension. So no, you shouldn't need a tensioner or a magic gear. Will double check this when I get to a computer.

you indeed have nice, long horizontal rear dropouts. Chain tension won't be a problem at all without a tensioner.

Good, so I can make it the correct tension by moving the wheels forward and back?
I am not near that stage yet, i might ask you a few questions when I get to it

P38 is a resin and hardener. golf ball to pea sized mix

having previously cut and made some stencil artwork using halfords carpaint,i always found the results very disappointing.Frankly the paint lacks lustre.Graff artists usually swear by Krylon,although i dont think its available in this country,Belton however is, and its of the highest quality, and comes in 251 different colours.Also, you can buy a selection of different cap sizes to get a finer spray (or thicker if you wish).useful for spraying areas where tubes butt into one another and you need more control and dont want such a thick coat.Changing caps between coats is probably a good idea too,to prevent blocking and uneven spray caused by dried paint in the cap.
I say all this without having sprayed a frame before,but im stripping one now and hope to commence spraying within about a week.I will be using Belton.i will let you know the results ;)

Plastikote paints are the hardest rattlers you can get currently unless you start using montana

just have to remember with plasticote it takes about 2weeks in a warm dry ventilated place to properly harden.

Or an oven if you have access, or for the more normal people a greenhouse :) Also worth a look is the rustoleum paints (even b&q stocking it now) as there like plastikote, dry harder and faster and are fairly tough.

having previously cut and made some stencil artwork using halfords carpaint,i always found the results very disappointing.Frankly the paint lacks lustre.Graff artists usually swear by Krylon,although i dont think its available in this country,Belton however is, and its of the highest quality, and comes in 251 different colours.Also, you can buy a selection of different cap sizes to get a finer spray (or thicker if you wish).useful for spraying areas where tubes butt into one another and you need more control and dont want such a thick coat.Changing caps between coats is probably a good idea too,to prevent blocking and uneven spray caused by dried paint in the cap.
I say all this without having sprayed a frame before,but im stripping one now and hope to commence spraying within about a week.I will be using Belton.i will let you know the results ;)

Isn't graff paint formulated differently to adhere better to surfaces more commonly painted on such as bricks and concretes? and not so good mo something like a bike frame... Just what I read somewhere.

Or an oven if you have access, or for the more normal people a greenhouse :) Also worth a look is the rustoleum paints (even b&q stocking it now) as there like plastikote, dry harder and faster and are fairly tough.

Isn't there something about alot of heat not being good for celluloid paint, and actually resulting in a poorer finish?

I'm not an expert on cellulose paint, but I think you can bake it at about 50 degrees. Some greenhouses are very humid though, so not an ideal place.

I roller-painted my girlfriend's bike using thinned Rustoleum and a high-density foam roller. It needed a lot of rubbing down, but the finish was as good as a decent powdercoat. It was very tough and a very cheap way to paint a frame, but considering the amount of wetsanding I had to do, I wouldn't do it again. And after all that, she decided she didn't like the colour... got the bastard powdercoated in the end.

In the US classic car scene, there's a cult following for people painting their cars with rollered Rustoleum - google it for guides and tips, the results can be excellent.

Because it was summer when I needed paint to harden, its stupid to run the heating for weeks, so stuffed it down the side of a wood burning stove overnight a few times when it was on. Keeping it more than 6" away so it wouldn't scortch, worked great.

Spanish Montana - Alien is good and very low pressure. In my profile there is an album called bike for craig - that was all sprayed at home with Alien - take a look.

You can get krylon in the UK. Ive had loads of it from poundshops and carboot sales. This was probaly all end of line lefotvers, but there must be somewhere selling the stuff.

Low pressure Montana
Lovely after 2-3 coats (evenly applied)
Provided the parent material is stripped of shite, bumps, lumps and buffer the frame ever so slightly so the 1st Coat sinks in. Use a Matt clear gloss if your worried about scrapin' the paint off ( Spray at a distance mind)

Fuck I just tried to coat a stem in the first layer of paint on well layered and sanded primer. Looks utterly crap. Fuckity fuck.

whats gone wrong? runs/sags, poor coverage, reaction?

anyone know if priming is completely essential, someone told me i wont need to if use hammerite...

Depends what the surface finish is like to begin with really. You can get away with spraying any paint without primer as long as (a) what your spraying onto is smooth (ideally finished with fine wet/dry) (b) you know what your spraying onto won't react.

From experience hammerite paint is thinner than normal (plasticote) paint and needs to be put on built up in thin layers. The matt black stuff I was using was near impossible to spray on tubing without runs. Saying that after you leave it a while it seemed to settle back and actually looked pretty good. It's tough as f***, I sprayed it directly onto a chrome BMX frame and it's standing up very well 8 months on.

These are who supply us at work http://www.paints4u.com/ , great low pressure/high volume stuff thats really sticky and hardly ever runs. It might be too expensive for most, but they'll do any ral colour you want. You'll want to get a proper mask though!

Also, correct me if I'm wrong but I thought all montana paint was matt???? Just checked they do a gloss varnish too.