• This topic has 19 replies, 10 voices, and was last updated 14 years ago by DeeW.
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  • Stripping powdercoat paint by hand…..
  • nickegg
    Free Member

    ….i have ALOT of spare time right now and know someone who can polish up my Orange 5 as per Steve Jones in Dirt mag recently.

    My question is…whats the best thing to strip the existing powdercoat off?

    Any tips appreciated.

    Thanks,

    Nick.

    Scienceofficer
    Free Member

    Nitromors. (the green one)

    Properly applied you wont need to use a wire brush. Follow the instructions because its unpleasant stuff. It contains a couple of carcinogens, as well as having directly sensitising and irritant/corrosive properties, not to mention their toxicity.

    I think Orange use a polyurethane poweder coat because it wears well. You’ll need to do a test first to see if it needs something more aggressive.

    thisisnotaspoon
    Free Member

    IIRC nitromors wont touch powdercoat, at best it would dicolour it.

    sorry i’m not much help, but i was told when i got my frame done that I’d better pick the right colour first time as it’s an absolute barsteward to strip it off again.

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    uplink
    Free Member

    Rotary wire brush

    Nitromors may soften it somewhat – I’ve not tried

    MrAgreeable
    Full Member

    Nitromors will take it off. Give it a good clean first, remove any stickers, apply liberally, wear thick rubber gloves and do it outdoors. And you’ll probably have to repeat to get the undercoat off. I hate stripping frames. 🙂

    thisisnotaspoon
    Free Member

    there is no undercoat on a powdercoat, its a coating of plastic powder thats then melted to form one continouous sheet.

    nitromors works on solvent based paint best, waterbased paints it takes some/a lot of effort, powdercoat i’d be supprised if it did any more than weaken it.

    Ask orange/drit what they used?

    I suspect a rotary brush will be to harsh on the aluminium underneath.

    Mike-E
    Full Member

    nail polish remover (don’t ask…)

    thisisnotaspoon
    Free Member

    acetone (nail polish remover is impure/diluted acetone) will most likely work, not sure where youd get litres of the stuff from though.

    Unless you know someone in a lab, the stuffs used everywhere. In fact ive run out of “chain cleaner” anyone in a lab in reading fancy “borrowing” 5l for me?

    MrAgreeable
    Full Member

    I’ve used Nitromors to clean up a powdercoated frame recently, as well as stripping two factory-painted bike frames. It doesn’t blister off as easily as, say, gloss paint would, but it goes rubbery and is fairly easy to remove. A couple of the frames definitely had some sort of undercoat or primer used too.

    Scienceofficer
    Free Member

    Sorry thisisnotaspoon but you’re completely mistaken on this point.

    I’ve now stripped two powder coated frames perfectly well using nitromors.

    nickegg
    Free Member

    Glad to see some replies are from people who have actually done what i intend to do!

    Thanks to those concerned.

    Anthony
    Free Member

    It clearly must depend on the type pf powdercoat.

    Nitromors WONT strip anything done by the powdercoat company I use. Regardless of colour.

    TandemJeremy
    Free Member

    IMO if nitromors stripped it it wasn’t powder coat. Powder coat does not use primer either I don’t think.

    Scienceofficer
    Free Member

    No, its generally keyed direct to the frame. Sometimes a very fine bead blast is used to rough the substrate up a bit, sometimes not.

    As has been stated, powedercoat is just plastic. Plastic has plenty of solvents that can act upon it.

    Scienceofficer
    Free Member

    I forgot to say, most notably, that solvent is DCM (dicloromethane) This particlarly pleasant substance is present in the green can nitromors, and is a solvent of polyester and acrylic expoxies, the two most commonly used powder coatings.

    thisisnotaspoon
    Free Member

    i stand (possibly) corrected.

    Maybe theres two type of nitromors and different types of powdercoat. The combination I used simply turned the surface rubbery and cloudy.

    Accetone definately works on some powdercoating as i accidently filled a machine up with accetone to clean out some oily gunk without wanting to use water………….. OOPPSSS

    schrickvr6
    Free Member

    I’ve used nitro on powder coated car wheels and it is slow going, you’ve really got to pile it on repeatedly, I find a brass wire brush is the best balance of getting the bubbling slop of and not damaging the metal underneath.

    Now I just get them alcohol dipped which isn’t much more expensive than a big thing of nitromors.

    Scienceofficer
    Free Member

    Nitromors does a whole range of stripping mixes. Thats probably where the confusion lies. Only one of them (to my knowledge) has DCM in it. Most contain non-chlorinated stuff.

    schrickvr6
    Free Member

    Spoon it will go rubbery at first but if you keep slopping it on it will come off eventually, and that’s with Ral powder.

    DeeW
    Free Member

    Anyone actually stripped an orange? i thought they were painted not powdercoated.

    D

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