Thinking about doing it myself, as my santa cruz blur 4x is, well, kind of boring in anodized silver. Can I buy some car paint and lacquer from halfords? Will I need primer? Anyone done it themselves?
However, I don, t want it to look nicked! So need to do a decent job.
Any advice gratefully received.

You’d need to key the surface well with wire wool.
Then prime it.
It WILL cost twice what a powder coaters would charge.
Trust me, been there.
Plastikote works well.
Car spray / knacker lacquer is too thin.

If a proper coaters does it they would probably recomend lightly shot blasting it, & I’d agree.

Can you recommend me a powder coater? And how much am I looking at?

skeff10 – After a fair bit of research I picked LSN Coatings as they had done a few bikes for others on STW and the quality was always talked about positively.

They were a little reluctant to accept a bike frame by post (and you need to read the small print in the couriers contracts as not all will accept damage liability), but I promised to box it up well and give them packaging they could reuse.

I also arranged for CityLink to collect it when it was done (who don’t require the sender to print any labels – LSN don’t have a PC on site).

They didn’t have the exact colour I / my daughter wanted, but they picked a fairly close match (use a RAL colour chart to pick a colour and alternatives).

After a quick look when it arrived this week, I think they have done a great job – all holes were filled / taped, the colour depth is great, finish is v good – they started with a battered, worn, second hand frame. The colour is fairly different to what we originally wanted but the finished colour, with sparkle top coat looks great, and my daughter was really pleased – “much better than the photos” was her verdict!

It was £45 for a 3 piece full sus frame (kids bike though) and about £18 for insured, return postage.

I’d definitely use them again. Drop me a mail if you’d like a photo (see my profile for the address).

smurf

Forgot to add….

– Armourtex in London have had some good and the odd less good review.
– Dan @ PWS finishing Ltd (a frequently recommended guy in the BMX world) will do MTB frames but he wants them stripping before he will coat them. c.£60 pounds a frame

Other STW comments when I was researching:

– “Bournes in Birmingham – £30 for mask, sandblast and coat….perfect finish and very used to doing frames. I cannot recommend them highly enough”

– “I would recommend topmarques in fenton as they have done top work for a few of the chaps I ride with.very good prices as well, which always helps”

– “I have had several done by these guys…http://trestanfinishers.com/
For £35 inc blasting – and a superb job each time! The last one I took back they stripped with chemicals, as they said they had blasted it the time before, and didn’t like blasting more than once”

– “Try these guys really good at what they do http://www.triple-s.co.uk/

– “I’ll second Triple S. Excellent job on my road frame.

– “Chose one of the extraordinary number of powders from prismatic and order from their website, send the powder with your frame and it will come back better than new”

– “I use http://www.stockportpowdercoating.com, the guy who does it is a proper perfectionist and does a really great job. Ended up coating my last frame 3 times before he was happy with the outcome!”

I think it would be worth visiting in person if possible – makes it easier to ensure you get the colour and top coat how you want it and it would save postage.

Hope that helps.

smurf

I’m not a fan of painting perfectly good aluminium frames that are a few years old. Heard of too many people that snap them a month later due to the heat treatment used to dry the paint upsetting the frame. I’d keep it silver.

+1 for powdercoating, it’ll be the same price if not cheaper, more durable and probably a better finish (it won’t be quite as good as a profesional paint spray though). And it requires little/no effort on your part!

Prices do vary though, I’ve paid £20-£50 for a hardtail frame and the quality varied from crap to excelent, look at what else they coat if it’s fence posts then it won’t be as good as someone who does car wheels etc.

Good point GeForce Junky.
I’d ask for 160c max & a longer cure time.
To be honest, unless its some ultra exotic alloy & its baked at 200+ for ages its unlikely to be an issue.
Orange happily re-coat frames, albeit for £200!!!

Cheers. I, m not far from birmingham so maybe bournes? Smurf do you have any details on them?
What about hammeriting the frame to keep metallic finish, anyone tried?

If the frame is in good nick you could probably get away with coating straight onto the anodising. Would have to be in good condition though. We coat over it all the time…granted its normally new shopfitting stuff.

What about hammeriting the frame to keep metallic finish, anyone tried?

I have not used it for a long time so the the formula may have been improved. Hammerite does/did take a long time to fully cure, so unless you can home bake it will be 2 to 3 weeks before you can put it back together.

If you are still thinking about painting yourself, U-POL no.8 etch primer is good, at halfords.

A home painted finish, and most professional too, will never be as tough as powder coating though.

I’ve no details on Bourne I’m afraid – I had them on my list of possible places to use after reading on STW.

I ended up using LSN after Tracey and others said how impressed they were with them. One of Tracey’s frames was also the colour my daughter liked the most.

There are quite a few good threads on here and on the ‘net where folks have posted pictures of different colours and effects. I think they are worth a look.

If you’re anywhere near Malvern/Worcs I could possibly get it done for you. I shot blast my own frame then got the guys next door to powder coat it for me.
Done a very nice job and well priced too

I can recomend Frederick Cooper, in B’ham, by the blues ground.
I have no idea on cost, but if they are good enough for Bentley, Lamborghini, Aston Martin etc, they should be able to do a bike frame. 🙂

May not be cheap though, but depends what you want.
Hammerite will look gash.

This was my last rattle can job…
(Follow the links for extra pics).
Used Plastikote, cost about £20 in paint.

02012010143 by pten2106, on Flickr

Takisawa, that looks just the job, plastikote from halfords yeah? Or online?
Stevied, thanks for the kind offer, I, ll have a go myself; if it looks cack I, ll give you a bell, my folks are in tenbury

Hammerite can look great (dustcoat it for a really nice tactile matte finish) but it’s not tough enough for mountain bike use. Neither is plastikote in my experience, tried it straight to metal and over an acid-etch primer and both times it was pretty but scraped very easily.

I’d post it to Triple S personally- if you do business with the custom motorbike crowd, you do good job or someone’ll burn your business down 😆 . Or, get Steve the Anodiser to reanodise it- bit more expensive but also more interesting, I love mine.

Plastikote from Wilkos.
It had a good month to harden off in a warm room before use.