Stripping paint and refinishing/repainting/powdercoating a bike

Never mind all that it's Saracen with a "C"

o my lord,please take my thread of and i will restart it and use the spell check,what a twat.

Your best bet is to pick up your local yellow pages and just have a look at powder coaters.

Many of them will will sand blast and powder coat your bike. Its usually a turnaround time of about 3 days because they'll fit you in around their own work.

Prices can vary, but you'll probably be looking at about £50-£60 for a low end paint.

[QUOTE=Meedmo;2372860]Your best bet is to pick up your local yellow pages and just have a look at powder coaters.QUOTE]

or UTFS !!

Hi there,
i'm painting my fixie and i want it to have that professionally painted look. I've search a lot and read that after each coat you half to sand it a bit except for that do i half to do anything? And on my last bike the paint came off quite easily can i spray something to protect the paint ?

Cheers

Loving the tags: fixie,painting,tips. The best way to get that professionally painted look is to get it professionally painted. Hours of rattlecan and sandpaper will still only look meh. There is a guide here http://www.wikihow.com/Paint-a-Bike but my advice would be, if it's a good frame, get it done by a pro, if its a shit frame, don't bother, for the hours of work, and cost of primer, sandpaper, paint and lacquer, you could just get a better frame.

Also "half?"

thanks mate the thing is it has great potential and its quite expensive to get it done professionally and i want to get good at painting a frame so got to practice

practise on a piece of shit then.

or UTFS

Thanks mate. The thing is, it has great potential, it's quite expensive to get it done professionally and I want to get good at painting a frame. So, got to practice!

FTFY

....................blah,blah....

Also "half?"

west country accent. have sounds like half.

"i half to do this and i half to do that, then i half to go to the post office".

sorry if i missed something.

I would "half" thought that have is pronounced more like 'ave in the west country?

Gr8 thread

Hi all...

just wondering if anyone has powdercoated a frame 2 colours? basically this is what I want...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fixedwheelnut/4827842589/

any tips?

live in islington (armourtex said they dont do 2 colours...)

Tahnks

I know you don't want to hear it mate, but you should just sell the decals and sack the whole respray thing. It's not a good enough frame to warrant the money. Plus the decals won't last that well anyway because you can't lacquer over them.

The other option is to get Vaz to respray it with enamel. But thats in South London.... and altho he's cheap it will cost more. Closer to £100 i'd guess.

Just ride it, enjoy it, and sort out your saved searches on ebay and buy something better later on.

I know you don't want to hear it mate, but you should just sell the decals and sack the whole respray thing. It's not a good enough frame to warrant the money. Plus the decals won't last that well anyway because you can't lacquer over them.

The other option is to get Vaz to respray it with enamel. But thats in South London.... and altho he's cheap it will cost more. Closer to £100 i'd guess.

Just ride it, enjoy it, and sort out your saved searches on ebay and buy something better later on.

other options? its my first fixed conversion/refurbishment so I am determined to do it. can i just spray paint over the chips? also what is the best way to get the stickers and residue off?

the bike is currently completely bare i.e. no bb, no headset

Fine!!!

IMO these are your options:

1) Touch up - Clean it thoroughly, polish with T-cut and then use touch up paint then wax.

2) DIY - Respray it yourself. Search on here and you should find a thread(s) on how to. General consensus is not to strip the paint, but to sand and smooth, then spray over the top. The most important thing is having a smooth even surface.

3) Vaz - pay Vaz to do it.

Happy?

Sand the frame with some reasonably coarse sand paper (I used 200 grit because I found some in the back of a drawer) - mainly to give the surface a good 'key' for the paint to hold on to and to smooth out any scratches or nicks.

(you could also simply use Nitromos/Paint stripper and then give the clean frame a light scuffing)

Make sure the frame is grease and dust free, a quick bath with some washing up liquid should do the trick, then make sure the whole frame is dry.

Set up a clothes line or something to hang your bike from - a broom handle in the seat tube or similar will also work.

Give the frame one coat of grey primer, hold the can around 25cm away from the frame and keep it moving.

Give it an hour or so to dry.

Give the frame a few coats of your chosen colour, hold the can around 25cm away from the frame and keep it moving, keep each coat fairly light, don't try and cover it in one pass, and leave 15-20 minutes between each coat (there should be a recommended time between coats on the can).

Use a fast drying spray paint so your frame is not wet for an extended period of time and thus is less likely to have dust stick to it.

Your frame will be touch dry in 20 minutes if you keep your coats light and even, but not 'set' or hardened' as yet, you need to leave it for 24 hours or so for the paint to fully set - the longer the better, some say leave it for a few days before remounting all the hardware.

I am no expert and this is all simply personal experience and how I have sprayed many things over the years, they generally look pretty good.

You can see my efforts here: SSSD

This is what I did;

Stripped the frame with paint stripper (Warning very acidic) Use gloves, eye-protection, and face-mask.

Fill in bumps and what-not with bondo, and sand it down so it's smooth with about 200 grit sandpaper.

Tape everything you don't want sprayed with blue-painters tape. Now spray the bike with primer in a well aired area, sand down after each layer with very fine sandpaper, I sprayed 2 layers of primer before the color.

Then spray very thin layers of paint and sand gently between each layer, I sprayed 4 layers of color.

Then spray with clear-coat 3 layers aprox.

Here are a couple of posts from this thread. I don't know what else is here, but have a read and then see if there's anything better elsewhere on the forum.

I do remember a really good post by someone with some home paint jobs on retrobikes. Also I have a feeling Van Uden(sp?) might have written a good post somewhere.... basically spend some time searching.

Thanks a lot hugo7, very helpful..

I spray as a job and have painted a fair few frames, if anyone wants help give me a shout

I do remember a really good post by someone with some home paint jobs on retrobikes

That could've been me - before I had the money to buy a compressor and gun I used to spray bikes (and other things) with rattlecans, and I wrote it up on retrobike and bikeradar whenever people asked. I could go and find the thread and copy it but I can't be bothered right now - getting a few books out of the library and practising will teach you far more than any post on a forum.

Basically it all depends on how much work you put in. You can get professional/better-than-factory finish with rattlecans, but you have to do a hell of a lot of prep and wetsanding.

Cans chip very easily though, and there's not a lot you can do about that.

Had an old 531 steel frame stripped and powder coated, the only problem with this was it showed up all the inperfections in the frame that the builders filled and covered over before painting. The powder coat will only stick to bare metal so you cant fill any small dents , unless you fill them with braising. As already stated if your frame is not too bad just rub it down a little and spay on top of this as the old paint acts as a good undercoat.
If you strip your frame down to bare metal you have to give it a coat of primer then an under coat then your top coat and then a lacker, probably three coats of each to get a good finish.

That could've been me - before I had the money to buy a compressor and gun I used to spray bikes (and other things) with rattlecans, and I wrote it up on retrobike and bikeradar whenever people asked. I could go and find the thread and copy it but I can't be bothered right now - getting a few books out of the library and practising will teach you far more than any post on a forum.

Basically it all depends on how much work you put in. You can get professional/better-than-factory finish with rattlecans, but you have to do a hell of a lot of prep and wetsanding.

Cans chip very easily though, and there's not a lot you can do about that.

Any idea what it would cost to do it yourself.....inclding stripping prep, cans & top coat? It must be quite satisfying I would imagine to do the whole thing yourself.

The other option is to get Vaz to respray it with enamel. But thats in South London.... and altho he's cheap it will cost more. Closer to £100 i'd guess.

Vaz is £80 for prep and respray

Any idea what it would cost to do it yourself.....inclding stripping prep, cans & top coat? It must be quite satisfying I would imagine to do the whole thing yourself.

Well for the paint itself you probably need 2-3 big cans primer, 4-5 cans colour, plus two cans of lacquer if you're painting it metallic or pearlescent. If the frame is rusty/baremetal in places then a can of red oxide primer is a good idea, too.

That'll probably come to £30-£50, plus another £15-£20 for materials i.e. 400-2500 grit abrasive paper, masking tape, tack rags and polishing compound (or T-Cut if you have some lying around - this is the most expensive consumable). You might be able to borrow these materials from a friend.

I think realistically you're looking at a minimum of £40 for a non-metallic finish, which is about how much powdercoat starts at too.

EDIT - Oh yeah, if you want a tough finish, then engine block enamel is tougher than most car body paints - the finish isn't as good though. It requires baking which you can attempt by leaning the frame against a very hot radiator (or maybe putting it next to an open oven).