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I want to respray a tatty frame I'm building up as a commuter. I thought spray.bike rattle cans were the go-to, but many people seem to have found the finish the opposite of durable. It's a utility bike, so it's going to get chipped eventually, but it would be nice if it didn't look a total mess within a few months. Budget doesn't extend to professional powder coat, unfortunately.
I have a decent electric HVLP spray gun, but not sure where to buy the sort of paint I'd need (or indeed, what sort of paint I need) in the small quantity I need, not in a rattle can. Would like to do a pattern with two or three colours, just to make it more complicated.
Am I likely to be able to do a half decent job with a bit of practice? Doesn't need to be top notch, just not messy. What sort of paint/finish coat would I need for reasonable durability, and where do I get it from? Will it end up being more expensive than just taking it to the local powder coaters anyway?
Cheers
Who is it on here that does frame spraying, might give mates rates?
Hammerite it?
Given that you can get a frame powdercoated at a backstreet place for £30-50, you'd be spending more than that on paint and materials to get a decent finish anyway.
Any powdercoating place nearby, strip the bike down, mask/tape everything up yourself, and get them to throw it in with the next batch of gloss black garden gates.
Montana Graffiti paint. Available from your local art shop. Millions of colours, very bright and hard wearing.
The biggest problem at this time of year is the temperature. Do you have somewhere warmish to paint it? If not it won't go off and it'll stay soft and chip instantly.
Powder coat may work out cheaper.
I sprayed one of my road bikes a couple of years ago. Nice Reynolds 653. Usual prep of rubbing down the frame, undercoat, topcoat and lacquer. Did take quite a number of spray tins as the undercoat needed to be perfect as the top coat was pearlescent and almost see through. Took a while to fully harden, but you may get better results with a 2k lacquer. TBH it's been fine, just had to be careful re-assembling at first as the paint can take months to fully dry.
It wasn't that cheap to do, but I was impressed with the results - 2 undercoat/primer, 3 pearlescent top coats and 2 lacquer tins.
I'm tempted to do my commuter, but I'm thinking powdercoat may be cheaper/quicker.
The spray-bike stuff looks good, but it's a rougher finish than I'd like.
Given that you can get a frame powdercoated at a backstreet place for £30-50, you’d be spending more than that on paint and materials to get a decent finish anyway.
Any powdercoating place nearby, strip the bike down, mask/tape everything up yourself, and get them to throw it in with the next batch of gloss black garden gates.
+1
Especially for anything utilitarian.
More like £60-£100 for a frame + forks from a reputable place with a choice of colors, but still cheaper than the ~6 rattle cans, paint stripper, cloths, sandpapers, wire wool etc that DIY will take.
Hammerite - very limited colours.
If I can get it powder coated for £30-50, that might well be the cheapest option. Seemed to remember asking someone who'd had one done at the local recommended place and it was more like £100, and that was a few years ago... could be misremembering.
Powder-coating also rules out doing a fancy pattern, though not the end of the world.
Usually save painting jobs for the summer, but don't want to wait for this. I've got an area in my garage sectioned off for dirty jobs which I can stick a heater in for a bit, then move the frame inside for extended drying once touch dry. Not ideal, but the best I can do.
Where are you based Northwind?
I've had a couple of frames powder coated at local industrial powder coaters. Both were 50 quid, including acid dipping to remove the existing tatty paint, and the results were excellent
Greggs Blue matt powder coat with a gloss laquer ....
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Newcastle... maybe I could nip round to the Greggs factory and ask them to put it in with their next batch of lorries 😂
That looks mint!
I'll see if I can get a rough price from my local place.
It still wouldn't allow me to do multiple colours, but maybe that's not worth the hassle.
I've used the spray.bike stuff...
Was fun to do with my lad, but not put the durability to the test yet!
The finish is 'rough/matte' kinda, despite using glodd final coat. I like it though!
Sand blasted
Primer
Final finish!
Was fun..buy DID take time and was about a tenner a can (£40 all in for paint, plus £20 to sand blast!)
Was more a labour of love with the son, than a 'job' as such..
DrP
Nice one! Fade looks really good, I wouldn't be brave enough to try that. Masking I can do.
Did you use the spray.bike primer and clear coat?
Have you done any sort of heat treatment? I'd be tempted to go over it with a hot air gun to encourage curing if I do go down this route - not sure if that's a waste of time and energy though. Or at least leave it next to a radiator for a while.
Interested to know how it holds up anyway.
Edit: though I'm guessing this wasn't recently given your lad's in shorts and t-shirt... how long ago and how is looking now?
For powder coat totally strip your frame but don't waste your (and their) time masking it. They will be blasting or dipping it first and only then masking with a high temperature tape that you won't have.
I used spray.bike to repaint my starling.
A good result, pretty pleased with it. Used the Kieren flake on top.
You have to spray a lot closer to the frame than when using normal paint and between coats take a soft cloth and rub it down for a smooth finish
To update this...
I went fairly "all in" and did it with Montana Gold in the end, mainly because the art shop in town have a good colour selection.
Two or three coats of U-Pol zinc primer (which I had a nearly full can of already, but I note is now £25 a can 😬). Was worried I'd screwed up from the start as it didn't seem to adhere very well. Tried to rub it back a bit between coats and more or less wiped it off.
Did the fork first. Tried to put very thin coats on as per conventional wisdom, but think I was a bit too cautious - it seemed to benefit from a thicker coat that was able to "wet out" as long as it didn't run.
I used the orange as my "base" - no masking but not aiming to coat the bits that would be covered. The coverage seemed pretty poor, and I had problems with it spitting, and then leaking out under the nozzle and just painting the can. Emptied the whole can just doing half a frame, but it was just about ok in the end. Not sure if I was doing something wrong, or if it was just a bad can.
I was planning to mask it freehand, but my perfectionist side took over and I ended up printing templates from an online tool, some of which I modified for the oval/dimpled tubes, masking onto old plastic CD sleeves to cut, and then applying. (Used this tape, which was excellent, and a nice colour 😁 https://www.toolstation.com/masq-low-tack-masking-tape/p62388)
The other colours went on a lot better.
I left it for a few weeks while I sourced a rim, and unlaced another, then stripped and polished both, and a headset, so I could clear coat the lot at the same time with 2k clear coat from a local car refinishing shop. Was pretty straightforward.
I already had the primer, the paints were about 7 a can, and the clear coat was 20 quid. Probably spent another tenner on sandpaper and tape. So probably about half the cost of powder coating, though not including the biggest single cost: suitable filters for my respirator, £35 🙄Massively time-consuming, obviously, but satisfying.
Nice! Looks decent. Post some pics when it's built.
Thanks! Will do. Been amassing a box of parts. Just need a seatpost now (27.2x400, silver, if anyone has one) then I can build up, though I want to put some sort of frame saver in first.
I'm North East and every time I've looked into powder coating bike frames Bettablast always seem to be the most recommended by a mile around here. They are in Shiremoor so pretty local to you?
Teach me for reading the first post and then posting.... 🙂
I think I've just found somewhere in Sheffield that sells Montana and I'll be checking it out at lunch time. The last place closed in the first lockdown and never reopened.
I predict a multicoloured DJ frame in my near future.
@ogden cheers, yeah I know a couple of people who've had theirs done by then, and they would have been my first port of call if I'd decided to go down the powder route, being only a 15 min ride from me.
If I was going to do it again and not worry so much about the cost, I'd consider getting it blasted and powder coated in a base colour, then spraying the pattern colours on top and clear coating.
@sharkattack brilliant, post pics!
I did this last year on a hardtail frame I bought. I wanted a orange - red fade but decided a powdercoat finish would be more durable than just paint so I went to local powdercoaters (not that local but good rep - LSN in Castleford) and they did the block red over all the frame. I bought the orange I wanted in auto paint and did the fade from the headtube back to somewhere around middle of down/top tubes. I applied the stickers/decals and then got a mate who paints cars to do the top coat laquer finish. I'm more than happy with the finish.
Nice! Looks decent. Post some pics when it’s built.
Better late than never: https://singletrackmag.com/forum/topic/show-me-your-inappropriate-but-fun-commuters/#post-12835229
The paint isn't as hard-wearing as I'd hoped, but probably what I'd expected. Got a few chips already, but it's a utility bike, and as long as the overall effect isn't ruined, I'm happy enough.
I spent a massive amount of time prepping and gome spraying my commuter. If I did it again, I'd either say **** it and knock it out in an hour and live with the results, or get it done professionally