[Closed] Which paint stripper to 'raw' a frame?

I started a thread of post somewhere on this recently - apparently nitromors isn’t that good anymore.

I did a bit of digging around and found Argos cycles in Bristol would either chemical strip or shotblast paint off a full suss frame for £100. If aluminium it has to be chemical as the tubes are generally thinner than steel and shot blasting not recommended.

The main chemical that took the paint off was removed from Nitromors a few years back so now it pretty much does nothing.
There was an industrial chemical Halfords used to sell that did the job much better than NM but I think 5l was the smallest size it came in.
Will have a dig for the post with the info about it......

EDIT: Found it, it's called Starchem

https://www.spraygunsdirect.co.uk/index.php/starchem-synstryp-paint-stripper-5-litre.html#sthash.7lQlAaV3.dpbs
As I said you have to buy a big drum and it's quite pricey. If you google it there's a few vids on youtube showing how good it is though!

I had a frame chemically striped by pro-strip in Nottm for £40 and another blasted for £40 at a custom car place in Barry.

£100 is a frankly piss taking price.
Find a local powder coaters and they'll do it for a fraction of that. Don't even bother trying to diy, it'll cost more, be a messy, shitty job, and probably won't end up as good.
I had a car subframe chemically stripped and powder coated for 30 quid a few years back. I wouldn't expect it to be out of that ball park.
Where in the country are you?

Just bear in mind that unprotected aluminum looks crap very quickly. Most of the 'raw' frames you see that look good are either freshly done, or factory done with a layer of lacquer/clear powder.

I'm in North East; down the A19 25 min south of Middlesbrough

I rawed an NRS frame many years ago and rather liked the unprotected aluminium finish that just dulled slightly. Not everyone wants a bling mirror finish. IIRC dichloromethane available on ebay is highly effective at paint stripping but also highly dangerous if you don't take care to ventilate well etc .

The main chemical that took the paint off was removed from Nitromors a few years back so now it pretty much does nothing.

The mian chemical was dichloromethane which is horrendously toxic, carcinogenic and also illegal to put down the sink - it's an absolute nightmare once it gets into the aquatic system and for that reason, its production and use was massively cut back about 15 years ago.

AFAIK, it's not even in production anymore unless under incredibly tight regulations; you have to recycle existing DCM.

^also known as methylene chloride (MeCL2).

Still available in paint strippers on eBay but not something you want to be paying with in the home environment.

Most factory 'raw' finishes are scothbrited -green pads give the slightly scored/grained finish, blue pads more of a soft polish.

NEVER get a frame shot/sand/media blasted.

Right, so a chemical dip stripping is the way to go by the sounds of it then. I wouldn’t mind doing it diy myself but there is so much mixed info out there and most of it is so old it refers to nitromors before it changed.

I have another frame that I was looking at getting powder coated but if you google that enough people say not to do that due to the temps

A lot of people talk a lot of shit.

I've rawed a frame with a combination of nitromors and a gas flame and wire brush. Its possible but took a long time and probably cost as much as a dip in materials. It probably wasn't as good either

Managed to get a smaller bottle of starchem synstryp for £15 on ebay; in short don't bother, it did nothing, not even on a dowel I'd used to mix paint. They must have changed something in the stuff just like nitromors. There's loads of videos of paint bubbling up etc on youtube and people saying how good it is on different forums but didn't do anything whatsoever on an old rear triangle I have.

Just bear in mind that unprotected aluminum looks crap very quickly. Most of the ‘raw’ frames you see that look good are either freshly done, or factory done with a layer of lacquer/clear powder.

I’ve got a raw Liteville 301 Mk10 and I can tell you it looks a lot less crap than the black ano one that I also own. In fact, not crap at all - they get that slight patina of age and then never seem to change after that.
The black one looks like a washed-out pair of Levis - but it’s been well used in its short life.

So turns out that Starchem Synstryp does actually works brilliantly! Just don't apply it with a brush as it goes on too thin and wont work, it needs to be on really, really thick.