Raw finish job

The paint on my bike is a bit knackered so I've been debating getting a new paint job for a while, but have recently started considering doing a raw finish/no paint job on the bike myself and so I was just wondering if anyone had any experience with this or had any comments on/experience with paintless bikes and London weather.
I'd clearcoat it afterwards, but was just wondering it it literally was as simple as paint stripper, scrub it, clean it, clear coat it?
Cheers for any help.

Pretty much that, they say you want about 2-3 layers of clear coat to really seal it well. Depending on what you scrub it with you will get different effects, so you might want to choose if you want a polished or dull surface.

Cheers, will look into that. I think I'd like it to look polished, but the frame is a pretty old Columbus one and I have no idea what state it will be in underneath so I think I'll probably play it by ear judging on what it looks like once all of the paint is off.
I've also read a few places mentioning sealants, are they necessary if I'm clear-coating?

Can't say I've heard of using a sealant on a raw frame before, normally with a decent few layers of clear coat on its fully sealed and only would rust in places it gets chipped.

Ok, cool. Any recommendations for paint stripper or clear coat if you've ever done a paint job yourself? Everything I can find online seems to have pretty mixed reviews!

Nitromors, it's pretty nasty stuff, so wear gloves. Your frame should be alright, just paint it on with a brush, when the paint starts to bubble scrape it off. You need to wash the frame afterwards, to stop any reactions.

Yeah, I've read a lot about Nitromors, that seems like the one to go for.
Ok, cheers. How do you stop rust setting in if you're hosing it down though? Just keep it warm and dry afterwards for a while?

Depending how fast you want to clear coat it, you could just paper/towel dry it. I cant seeing it rusting that fast.

As for a clear coat brand, any should do really.

Cheers. Any idea how much paint stripper is needed? Nitromors do a 375ml tin, would that be enough, or should I go bigger?

depends how much you want to raw, you brushing it on so it doesn't need to much.

I'm doing the whole frame, but the forks are already chromed so that's 1/4 of the bike that doesn't need doing. So would 375ml be ample?

http://www.lfgss.com/thread15807.html

Standard clearcoat will absolutely not work, I've done it a couple of times before. If using clearcoat from a spray can, it'll chip incredibly easily and crack off; modern 2-pack acrylic clearcoat shot from a gun is tougher but it still isn't a practical finish. Clearcoat won't adhere properly to bare metal unless you sandblast it, which'll give a very dull matte grey uniform finish - which, when clearcoated, looks not dissimilar to metallic paint anyway... probably not the finish you're after.

I've heard that clear stove enamel is possible, and there's also a product called POR-15 Glisten which apparently works very well even on polished metal.

In my experience, the easiest finish is just to wipe linseed oil on the frame (the thin straw-coloured stuff from art shops, not the thick orange boiled stuff used for treating timber). It gives a satin finish rather than gloss, but it protects excellently against rust, dries to a hard finish that doesn't rub off, and you can just re-apply it when you need to (once every 2-3 months).

A good tip when using nitromors is to apply it, then wrap it up in clingfilm. The idea is to keep the nitromors wet for as long as possible, so it has time to disintegrate the paint. If it dries out, then you have to start again, basically.

Ah crap, really? I haven't heard that anywhere else.
I don't have a gun or the ability to sandcoat it either, so doesn't sound good.
Would taking a bit of sandpaper to the raw metal to smooth it our not help with the paint sticking at all either? I'm just really looking to do it as cheap and quickly as possible, but it doesn't really seem like that's a practical solution anymore!

I've heard clearcoat wont work, once you get a stone chip it will just crack and peel away in that area so you're left with huge patches of surface rust.

Why not try it and see? It's only the cost of a can of nitro mors and a a few cans of clearcoat.

Sanding the bare to key the surface will work, but it won't work as well as sandblasting. As ptr says, once you get a chip, it'll peel off easily from there. And it'll chip far, far more easily than paint. If you do think about sandblasting, please find some images of a sandblasted bike first - it might not look how you want it to, and it's impossible to reverse afterwards (except by painting, that is).

If you want to do it as quickly and cheaply as possible, do this:
Nitromors (or own-brand paint stripper) to remove paint
Scrub with a wire brush to remove the little bits of paint that'll stick in the lugs
Give it a bloody good wash and clean
Apply a few thin coats of linseed oil (a bottle enough to do probably fifty coats costs about a fiver)
Pour linseed oil inside frame to protect from internal rust, too.

Hiya

I just stripped and clear coated a steel frame.

Its a lot of work but the result seems to be OK so far.

I used Nitromoors to start with, this removed most of the paint. I then applied a second lot of Nitromoors to the remaining paint and went at it with a wire brush, this got most of the paint off the frame.

Its the niggly bits that cause problems, where the frame joins the BB etc. I went at these with a wire wheel and Dremel. I also used heavy sand paper in parts then moved down the grade until I was using something like a 600 grade paper.

I also used a wire cup brush in a drill to get at some parts.

It took ages, probably about 5 or 6 hours in total over a couple of days.

I then used a clear coat undercoat followed by three or four layers of clear coat.

Paint cost alone was around £30.00 as I used three cans.

You get loads of overspray and waste a lot of the paint.

The finish is holding up OK, not sure how long it'll last but it looks OK for now.

As for rust - on the steel frame I was getting very slight rust blemishes on the uncoated frame if I left it outside in damp conditions for just a couple of hours. Easy to remove but it made me realise how important it is to get a decent amount of clearcoat over the whole frame.

Don't forget to protect the frame when you rebuild the bike - its easy to chip it if you are a bit heavy handed!

Have a go at it - if you don't like it or it doesn't hold up all you have lost is your time and the cost of the clear coat.

Cheers

A small can of POR-15 Glisten is about £25 and is apparently a hell of a lot tougher than any traditional wet-paint finish I've seen. And you can apply it by brush. Not sure if one small can will do a whole frame, though.

Cheers for all of the replies. I definitely think I'll go for clearcoat over linseed-ing it.
The whole chipping thing has put me off the clearcoat somewhat though. If it does chip could I not just spray that lone area with clearcoat again (after sanding it down and whatnot). That's obviously not a permanent fix, but might make it a bit more of a realistic solution, and then could just respray the entire bike with clear coat every year or so.
Or do you guys just think the clearcoat wont hold up well enough alone?

A small can of POR-15 Glisten is about £25 and is apparently a hell of a lot tougher than any traditional wet-paint finish I've seen. And you can apply it by brush. Not sure if one small can will do a whole frame, though.

I can only find tins of POR-15 Glisten, does it come in spray cans too? I don't know if I could trust myself to get anything near an even finish with a tin and brush!

A tip I read recently, was to go over hand-painting with a small roller: this will even out any drips and brushstrokes.

Cheers for all of the replies. I definitely think I'll go for clearcoat over linseed-ing it.
The whole chipping thing has put me off the clearcoat somewhat though. If it does chip could I not just spray that lone area with clearcoat again (after sanding it down and whatnot). That's obviously not a permanent fix, but might make it a bit more of a realistic solution, and then could just respray the entire bike with clear coat every year or so.
Or do you guys just think the clearcoat wont hold up well enough alone?

All this chat about clear coat chipping and not lasting long... I've had my frame stripped and clear coated for about a year now, and the only places where it's chipped off is where my lock has come into contact with the frame.

It's not as good as a primed, sprayed and lacquered surface- that's an easy conclusion to come to. But just clear coat will hold up well enough. I used up a couple cans, and made sure the frame was well covered. Go for it. Spray away. Get high on fumes. Ride it raw.

Oh, and you will get a bit of discolouration under the clear coat. But it's nothing that'll make you worry.

All this chat about clear coat chipping and not lasting long... I've had my frame stripped and clear coated for about a year now, and the only places where it's chipped off is where my lock has come into contact with the frame.

It's not as good as a primed, sprayed and lacquered surface- that's an easy conclusion to come to. But just clear coat will hold up well enough. I used up a couple cans, and made sure the frame was well covered. Go for it. Spray away. Get high on fumes. Ride it raw.

Cheers, that's reassuring. Any recommendations on what brand of clear-coat to use? I've just bought some Nitromors, which seemed to be recommended pretty much everywhere, but have no idea where to start with picking the clearcoat.

What kind of discolouration? Not that it matters.

I went out and bought clear lacquer from a well known automotive spares shop. Bought a couple tins and sprayed. It was run of the mill stuff...

Mine turned a slight tinge of brown. It was meant to be a temporary covering for the frame, but ended up being a long term thing, as it holds up pretty well.

Ah, ok. What kind of price did you pay? There's a load of cheap stuff online, but the price seems to jump from about £5-10 to 20-30, so I didn't know if it was worth paying more.

I've heard about it turning yellow so I guess it's just a variation of that, that's cool I think I can deal with that. The bike is just a pretty garish (and chipped) blue but everything else on it is either chrome or black so I figured I might as well just keep it raw, easier and would probably look best anyway.