[phunel]

I plan on stripping off the paint on my bike over the holidays and coming up with my own custom paint job. I was wondering what special procedures I should follow to assure that the paint takes hold. ie. - specific type of primer, paint combo - roughing up the aluminum to make the paint adhere better, how many layers of clear coat are adequate, etc. any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[sub6]

I've done this; it can turn out really well.

I'm not aware of any specific primer you'd need to use; I just painted over my existing paint - it was a new bike, so there weren't any chips or uneven parts to the paint. If you do that, DON'T USE LAQUER. It'll peel up the existing paint and look like total sh it. Come to think of it, don't use laquer no matter HOW you paint the thing. It's nasty stuff. Stick with epoxy enamel.

No matter what, you should go over your frame (painted/bare metal/whatever) with steel wool, to give it a rougher finish. You don't need to scrape it up and make it nasty; a heavy grade steel wool will be fine. Then, wipe everything down with rubbing alcohol, to take off all the oils from your skin, or any dust or anything else that will prevent the paint from sticking. Handle the frame with gloves on, to prevent any contamination of the surface by your skin.

Basically, you need to do everything in very thin coats. If you put on a thick coat of paint, it'll run or sag and look like crap. You should be able to see right through the first few coats.

There's no such thing as too many clearcoats. I probably did six or seven coats of it, and that wasn't much at all. Again, THIN coats are best.

Another thing to remember, is to let the paint dry COMPLETELY between coats. That means at least 24 hours, preferably 48 hours between applications. That way you'll get a harder finish.

When I did mine, it took about a month to get it all painted, and then I put it in a closet for another month to cure. Paint gets "fully hard" in about 24 hours, but it isn't cured at that point. After two or three weeks, it's REALLY hard. If you rush it, and go out and ride the bike a few days after you're done painting it, any little branch or pebble will chip/scratch your new paint job. If you wait, it'll be a stronger finish.

 

[sub6]

Oh. One more thing - unless you have an airbrush, don't waste your time trying to fade one color into another color. If you're using cans of spray paint, it WILL look like shi t. Fades are best left to painters who know how to do them; amatuer spraypaint fades (I've seen my share of them) always look bad.

 

[phunel]

Did you do your frame with a compressor hooked up to a pro' sprayer or a with some sort of high quality rattle can paint. I'm sure I could ahold of a compressor rig for a few days, but i certainly wouldn't be able to keep it for a few weeks to layer on the coats. any suggestions of rattle can paints that don't look like rattle can paints (you know what i mean ) i'm not attempting any sort of fade but I do want to stencil a design onto the down tube. this will need a few layers too right? the bike has been ridden and ridden well so it's far from pristine (hense the paint job) so i'm sure I'll have to strip off everything to give it an even coat. what do you think the minimum time I would have to let it harden - a week and a half perhaps?? i have other bikes but this one is my favorite xc rig so it'll be missed during the waiting period. thanks - dEan

 

[sub6]

I used rattle-can paint. But I was fortunate enough to want a flat-black bike - Cannondale BBQ Black is what I was attempting to replicate. So I was able to use a paint that's more of an "industrial" type. What I got was Rustoleum High Performance Enamel, which is essentially for painting industrial machinery. However, it doesn't go on clumpy or anything like that, it's just an extremely strong, chip-and-scratch resistant finish, which made for a very long-lasting, attractive paint job - something that on a MTB, isn't so easy to attain. I'm sure they offer a gloss version of this, and a few other basic colors.

The waiting sucks, but the problem with rushing it is that you'll be putting the bike in situations where it can scratch very easily, and soft paint really doesn't take too well to that. I can't say for sure that 1.5 weeks would be too much/not enough, but if it were ME, I'd just suck it up and write the bike off for a whole month, because I know that it was worth it for the quality of finish that I ended up getting.

Common lore about bike painting is that it's not worth it. My experience with this was the exact opposite, so I can only assume that what all the guys on MTBR who poo-poo the idea did was to rush it, and ended up with a weak paint job that was easily scratched.

Another, MUCH faster idea is: 1: get your stencils made into vinyl decals by a sign shop - that's cheap, easy, and fast. 2: have the frame powdercoated by a powdercoating shop (they're pretty common). This process takes about an hour, and results in a finish that you don't have to cure for two weeks, and will be stronger than ANY paint out there, hands down. You can get pretty good results with powdercoating, even though it's a coating designed for industrial machinery and such. Check out www.spectrumpowderworks.com for some examples of what can be done......

 

[phunel]

excellent idea on the vinyl stickers instead of stenciling - i'll definately run my design up to a sign shop here in the next week or so.

i'm going to take your advice and bite the bullet on not riding the beast for a month as well, i'm sure i'll thank myself in the long run.

appreciate all the help, as much as i kept modifying my bike i couldn't escape running into the same paint design around town. at least this way i'll never run into a similar bike and i can trick myself into thinking i'm riding a new rig until finances permit an actual purchase. thanks -dEan

 

[Old_Dude]

I haven't read the previous posts - when I get to my computer tonight, I can post a thread I've saved on this topic.

Also, I think there's information about painting bike frames somewhere at bicycling.com - ?

And finally, have you tried taping your frame? I just did - it looks terribly hoopty (sp?) - but at least you can't see the "TRE#" logo or text anymore (yeah, I REALLY, REALLY loathe that company).

 

[phunel]

cool - i look forward to reading your post.

 

[phunel]

oh yeah, i haven't gotten desperate enough to tape the frame but i have seen some nice jobs around ;O) if i got to that point i'd most likely strip the frame down to the bare aluminum and live with that.

 

[Ridemonkey]

You can't paint things in Boulder. Thats toxic. :devil:

 

[phunel]

Lucky for me I'm going to attempt the project when I head back down to the delta land (arkansas) where pretty much anything goes - Boulderites would be all over my case if I attempted it here i suppose.