UKC

Anyone got any experience stripping and painting a bike frame?
I have an old Giant OCR (alu) in immaculate condition. It is quite light and with wide pear shaped tubes it looks quite good. Unfortunately it's the old yellow, red and grey Giant colours and looks very dated.

I also have some Mavic CXP30 deep section wheels. They are bombproof, with Ultegra hubs. Again unfortunately they are yellow so I'm looking to do those too.

Hoping to go for the matt black stealth look - should be a cool bike.

I want the cheapest way as it's just a hobby project for the winter - hopefully be a good bike for the Flanders Sportive in March.

Cheers,

E

In reply to Enty: Don't shot blast it. I did that once and spent a lot longer getting the 'orange peel' look out of the paint.

If you are going for the proper mat black stealth look, you may want to rethink it.
It is a total pain to upkeep. I looked into it for a car once and all the advice said it looks fantastic, so long as you don't take it out in any kind of weather.
Do not underestimate how hard it is to keep it looking good.

In reply to Enty:

Easiest job is find a good powder coater and let them dip it in a tank to strip it and then powder coat it, other than that paint stripper, etch primer, base coat, and Lacquer flatting back after each stage. I've spent days rubbing frames down, you can do a half decent job with rattle cans, not a very tough finish tho' but generally better to let good a painter do the rest.

In reply to johnj:

Agreed. Can spray is very soft compared to having it done properly and baked.

In reply to Enty: If you do opt to do it yourself, one trick for flattening off is to apply the primer coat, then get a contrasting colour and give the primer coat a very light dusting so it's speckled. Then rub down with wet and dry until the speckles are all gone. This tells you you've got rid of all the peaks and troughs in the paint and it's flat.

In reply to johnj:

A friend got a bike stripped and powder coated for under £30. She was very pleased with the result.

In reply to Enty: How cheap is cheap? We got a couple of frames/forks resprayed by Mercian, they were approx £120 each including shipping/adding transfers/headset fitting on one. Did a fantastic job, and worth paying a bit for.

In reply to rousse:

What Clare said really - but I'm in France and wandering round and finding someone who actually wants to take money from me to do a job might be a problem.

E

In reply to rousse:

Not worth a pro job - frames is probably only worth 30 quid.

E

Anyone know the French translation for powder coating?

E

In reply to Tall Clare:

That's about average, powder coating has really come on over the last ten years, someone who knows what they are doing can produce results which are on a par with paint and is so much more hard wearing.

In reply to Enty: What Clare said, although i did shot blast my Fondriest frame and got it resprayed, just built the paint up..good finish. Dip and powder coat, if it was in Blighty i could get it done for you for next to nowt!

In reply to quirky:

Me too.

E

In reply to Enty: Just box it up then and post to uk, cant be more than 15 to 20 quid

In reply to johnj:

Part of me wants to spend a bit of time in me shed

E

In reply to Enty:

Maybe you could powder coat it yourself then, get some old electric fires and build a small stove, volia!

In reply to Enty:

Try "la peinture en poudre"

In reply to Enty: ey up- strip it with nitromors, and then polish it up. that will take ages in the shed!!!! rattle cans never give a really good finish and its allways soft and looks crap in no time.elliot

In reply to Enty:


In that case, Hammerite do matt black in a can. I used it to good effect on some handlebars recently, but couldn't comment on longevity. A whole bike might not work out too cheap compared to TC's 30 quid. The trick is many very thin coats.

In reply to Enty:

It is thermolaquage I think.

In reply to Enty:
Joey Barton?

In reply to Enty:

Different grades of wet/dry paper and plenty of elbow grease!(You've got all winter to do it)

Can't comment on the painting.

In reply to Enty:

could be worth asking on the retrobike forum, some of the members are very knowledgeable in these things

In reply to Enty: Fair do, as you say, probably not worth it (although my other half's frame cost £35 on ebay - looks great now!). Good luck finding something.

In reply to Enty:
Do not strip before painting your bike frame! The only thing worse than removing hammerite from your tackle is explaining to the wife how you did it

In reply to Tall Clare:

Where was this done? Seems a great price.

In reply to PGD:

Somewhere in Shipley, I believe. I'll find out!

In reply to ezbee:

yeah i learned the hard way- lots of effort for a crap finish that scratches easily. next time, i'd take to mr powdercoat
(Bettablast in newcastle did a great job with on a steel frame for 45 quid- about the same as my diy spraypaint attempt)

In reply to subalpine:

I understand it's difficult to mask threads etc. for the powder coating process.

The OP should be prepared to re-tap-out the B/B threads and do a bit of work with a file to get the seat-pin back in.