Painting aluminium frame

I'm sorry if this has already been answered before.

I just bought (a very ugly) Duratec Sprinter T9 and want to have it repainted.
As far as I know the tubing is of varying thickness and can be quite thin in some places.

My steel frame a has gone to a powdercoater who sandblasted them and, well, powdercoated them. They were fine and no problems at all.
What should I look out for with thinner aluminium? Is it better to go to a proper car paint shop?

Any help is much appreciated!

1 Attachment

Firstly, I think you should keep the original paint
Secondly I think it’ll be fine, it won’t be as thin as modern aluminium frames. But have a look into other stripping methods that may be easier on the tubing. There are other types of media blasting instead of sand. For example bead blasting using small plastic beads. Alternatively you could have it chemically stripped, look up acid dipping

Cheers Phil! Keeping the original paint would definitely be the easiest and cheapest. It's just for the track so the colour doesn't matter that much, but my local shop will do it for £50 so it just be a fun project. I managed to trace the original logo so I can put the stickers on it again.

I'll give them a ring tomorrow and ask if they have any other methods than sandblasting it.

Is it better to go to a proper car paint shop?

I'd rather take it to a proper bike paint shop: they'll have experience of bike tubing.

Try Mario Vaz (there's a thread on here), SE London.

Try Mario Vaz

I'd love to, but I live in Denmark. And 100 miles from the closest bike painter (that I know of) There's quite a few car painters in my area though.

Ah!

Can you get it dipped then?

Can you get it dipped then?

Dipped? What in the world does that mean...?

Alternatively you could have it chemically stripped, look up acid dipping

Yeah sorry, makes perfect sense now! Never heard about it before but I'll check up on it. Thanks for the hint BTW!

I have seen alu frames badly pitted after some overzealous media blasting; tread carefully.

You could always strip it yourself.

I would personally keep it original; the web address on the seatstay is certainly of a time! Everyone seemed to do that before google.

Everyone seemed to do that before google

Yeah, oldschool SEO shit right there. Male someone should inform Canyon of Google? 😉

The colour is bearable but black stickers with a white border is an absolute no no when you're a trained graphic designer. An education that, in Denmark at least, is free, has turned out quite expensive. I might keep the paint for a while and see if the fact that it is from the early 2000's can make up for it. But still good to know the options.

One mod you definitely should make; file the dropouts out and get that back wheel slammed in. It looks funny with that huge gap between the tyre and the seat tube.

get that back wheel slammed in

There's no tub on the back wheel, that's why it looks stupid 😉