Powder coating - Aurum / Vaz / Armourtex / Respray gallery

RAL 5022 ("Night Blue") with gloss finish. I didn't have time to clean it before I took the photos, so there are some smudges, but the paint job was excellent. The colour is a deep purple-blue, looking more or less purple depending on the lighting conditions.

Looks lovely - enough to make me rethink going for a subtle retro colour, esp given the current one is bright pearlescent banana yellow

got my frame back from the coater:

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1099/5107953340_8495c4ac33_b.jpg

black base with metallic flakes laquer.

gorgeous, thinking of having my joe waugh frame re sprayed like this

You should get your polo bike coated.

im going to soon i think, been letting it rust, just unsure of the colour i want to go for....

to be honest i think im gonna get all of my bikes painted at the same time, as they are all in desperate need of it!

colour suggestion for polo frame?

Shocking pink.
Baby blue.

Beautiful. If you dont mind me asking, how did you go about doing the decals and is it clear coated?

beautiful bike. been debating if it's worth the trouble but you have just convinced. will get mine done too

Popped my Rossin fork/frame in today for pearlescent white with gloss lacquer. anyone had any luck with decals/clearcoat over an armourtex lacquer job? The searchy search makes scary results. Will pop up pics once its finished.

Well, the frame looks beautiful where it's powder coated (pearlescent white with gloss laquer), but not all is perfect. Details and pics below.

UPDATE FOR FUTAR READARS FROM THA FUTAR (where we spell like this): The below is preserved so you know things may not be perfect with Armortex, but - two weeks later than have completely redone the bike, and the finish is really very good. I am happy. Lost 2 weeks of riding but worth it. Beautiful.

The Good:
The powdercoat is lovely - it is a glossy white that very subtly catches the light and shimmers purple or green depending on where it's positioned. Every bit as nice as the old Dupont paint from a metre or so away. It is slightly more 'dipply' on very close inspection than the paint was, but that is holding the frame to nose to see.

The Armourtex guys really paid attention to protecting the areas - the dividing lines around the seatposts, BB, etc, are all clear, no leakage inside the frame, no bulb around the tubes.

The downtube shifter mounts have been kept extra thin without a coat of laquer to ease fitting - excellent detail.

Major detailing like the Lug edges and braze ons are preserved with crisp, sharp edges.

Despite other posters experiences nothing was mixed up or lost, and Armourtex delivered exactly when they said they would.

The bad:
While some detail is lost over paint (the serial number is blurred, the markings on the seat stays harder to read) they are still visible - good.

One bolt fixing hole on the seatpost has a clear 'lump' on it where something wasnt cleared off properly and got powder coated. This was initially also a burnt colour, though that brushed off simply - its the only major flaw in the powder coat surface.

The ugly:
There is a 1cm by half cm area between the seat stays where they meet the post that hasnt been powder coated - looks yellow. Very dissapointing. Will have to take it back to armourtex on monday and wont get to build or ride the bike this weekend. Hopefully they will just redo, but getting there for 7am is a faff when having to get to work as well - opposite directions.

Here is my recent powder coat from Armourtex, the guys there were professional and the finish is almost chip resistant and really sparkles in the sun. The colour wasnt exactly what I was after but I'm still happy with the outcome.
I'd recommend them overall but a down side was that I didnt get a reduction in price for frame only, wish id taken a random fork down there just to get my moneys worth.

Its silver basecoat then over the top is metallic green lacquer with metal flakes.

Looks really nice Crows. I like the decals too - elegant proportions. What did you choose to stick on the laquer? Any clearcoat?

Almost wish I'd seen that before I chose the pearlescent white - a turquoise blue laquer like that would be beautiful on my frame ;-p

Cheers, i decided that I'd risk the decals with no clear coat but thinking now it might be a good idea to improve their life, have you applied your decals yet? I really like your White finish, did you get it back to them for the missing patch? Interested to hear the outcome

I don't think so- they pass a current through the frame and then spray the powder over it as far as I know, then cure it in an oven.

You could mask sections off, but then when it takes a trip through the oven the masking agent might not be too happy.

The secondary issue is that not many paints are happy to stick to powdercoat- automotive two-pack being the main choice, but that needs extractors and respirators to be worn when it is used.

Anyway, surely you are just going to get "baby blue" and be done?

They definitely can do multi colour - they have a crazy 80's style multicolour on the wall. I asked if they did it, and the guy (Duncan, I think) said yes. I said bet you wont be doing that again, and he grimaced, and said no.

So whether they will is another question. It was an impressive pic though ;-p

I don't think so- they pass a current through the frame and then spray the powder over it as far as I know, then cure it in an oven.

You could mask sections off, but then when it takes a trip through the oven the masking agent might not be too happy.

The secondary issue is that not many paints are happy to stick to powdercoat- automotive two-pack being the main choice, but that needs extractors and respirators to be worn when it is used.

Anyway, surely you are just going to get "baby blue" and be done?

I had an early 90s RM Blizzard that was powder coated in white and black, with a very rough fade under large decals.

No fuss no bother. They took it back in to recoat today ;)

That paint job and colour looks great! I'm just trying to understand how it was done. From what I gather, the silver base coat then has a green lacquer applied (which is semi-transparent right?) and is it the lacquer that contains the metal flakes that you mentioned? Sorry if this is a dumb question, I've just never known how metallic painting is done.

I know someone on here said they have a lot of colour examples at Armourtex to see in the flesh but have they also got examples of all the different types of laquer you can have?

yes (as far as i can remember) they had each metallic lacquer on various colours.

they don't always have all of them available though...

Cheers

They have a number of lacquer examples, but I'm not sure they have them all - I would try calling ahead. They're pretty helpful on the phone. when I looked there were a pretty small number of lacquer examples, and I imagine they could be combined in a huge number of combinations (different lacquers with different base coats)

Building my first bike - having FINALLY tracked down a small enough Mixte frame (British Eagle). Want to take it for a spray this week - can Armourtex pick out the lug details for me or do I need to do that post? Also there's bits I don't need on the frame (old gear change nob on top tube, hook for the pump on the seat tube) - can they blast/sand these off for me pre powder coat? I'm doing my nut in choosing the colour! Cheers

Since I've no experience of Armourtex, I can't comment if they will do either of those things for you, but they are both really quite easy to do yourself which will save a few quid on the bill.

Lug lining can be done with a fine brush and bottle of enamel paint from a model shop, or more easily with a paint pen. Removing unnecessary braze-ons can be done with a big metalworking file (which you can buy for about a quid from a car boot sale, or a tenner for a cheap new one). Metal files are pretty useful things if you are going to be fiddling around with bikes anyway.

I'd be careful about assuming you can lug line yourself post powdercoat - my understanding is it can be quite tricky to find things that will stick well to the gloss layer. Might be worth giving them a call and asking first.