[Closed] Anyone repainted their own frame & it looked good?

Skip find Bonty.

Leftover exterior emulsion from previous owners of the house. Paintbrush.

And yes, it looked the ****ing business. And it matched the front door.

I did using valspar sprays - it looked great at first but chipped off badly so I wouldn't recommend that paint.

Preparation is the key - you don't need to strip all the old paint off but you do need to spend ages getting the surface smooth and rub down between coats.

Warm the spray cans up to get a better finish I put them in warm water

Warm the spray cans up to get a better finish I put them in warm water

This is what I was advised to do too. As well as hairdryer (or heat gun, or fan heater) the surface to be painted.
I was only painting a campervan window frame with a halfords rattle-can, but I'm really impressed with how tough it's been since.

Done a few now with Spray.Bike, got a couple more in the pipeline when I have time, along with a hundred ideas I'll never have enough frames for 😀

It doesn't require much prep unless your frame's in a really bad way, but there's a bit of a knack to getting it applied well. Got a half finished blog post about that. Ought to finish it.

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back when I was a youth I painted my bike with a pot of Scammell blue (it was designed to be applied with a brush but leaving no trace of the brush marks) it looked amazing in deep gloss dark blue. Some scrote nicked it from under Bristol Student union 🙁

Spray.bike worked for me. Soft finish so it doesn't chip or flake but it does get marked by QRs and front mech clamps etc. It's like a powdercoat.

I had a shot-blasted frame so I did primer then added the top coat, had to rub it smooth then added lacquer.

I did my daughters bike with spray.bike was really easy and covered well. I didn't use the top coat and the paint doesn't clean very well, reckon if it had a gloss finish it'd be ok.

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Don't bother with Nitromors, the active ingredient was made illegal for domestic use years ago.

Find your local trade paints place and ask for some of whatever they use. Or you can order Starchem online I think.

Then find a local arts and crafts type place and see if you can buy cans of Montana paint. All the colours under the sun and really thick and bright. Takes a while to fully harden so helps if you can do it in a warm area or hang the frame up somewhere before you rebuild it.

Keeping the cans in a bucket of warm water is a top tip. It does 2 things. Makes the paint thinner and raises the pressure in the can slightly. So you get a finer, faster mist rather than a cold dribble down your finger.

No need to strip sound paint, good finish us easy but will be soft.

I have some 2 pack lacquer to try.

Methyl Chloride was the original active ingredient in Nitromors. You can still buy it, but you have to be deemed a "professional".

I've also made up paint stripper from a diy'ed sodium hydroxide solution and wallpaper paste (so it sticks on, if you can't dip it).

As both of them are rather 'orrible, full PPE is advised.

Yes.

Then I went to Specsavers...

I’ve also made up paint stripper from a diy’ed sodium hydroxide solution and wallpaper paste

Do you do the voices when you buy chemicals? 🙂

Montana crackle paint over some Montana Gold. Really easy to get a decent finish with. Paint is definitely softer than a factory paint job though.

I stripped the frame with a blowtorch and a wirebrush which really gives a good surface to work with and was quick and relatively painless, but not sure it's as advisable for aluminium.

For the cost of the cans, and the laquer, and the time, it's as cheap to take it to a powder coater and have it done professionally. The finish will be better and much tougher too. I've sprayed a bike of my own in the past and the finish was fine, but it was a stay of execution for a bike with a seized in BB (that would have been totally ruined by powder coating). It wasn't tough enough considering the £30 spent on nitromors and paint when a powdercoater was the same cost for the next frame I had done.

That Montana finish looks alright (and the cans are half the price of Spray.Bike)… is it easy to get good coverage without runs? (For a total amateur spraying in the garden.) Have you tried a fade and if so how easy is it to get a good result with that?

For the cost of the cans, and the laquer, and the time, it’s as cheap to take it to a powder coater and have it done professionally.

Yeah, but where's the fun in that?

Yeh, the Montana cans sprayed really nicely the crackle finish especially takes care of any runs when it shrinks. It was my first paint job and was just done in the Garden. I was looking to do a fade underneath with a translucent colour over the pink, but it ended up being too close a colour to the original to make any difference so I didn't bother.

It wasn’t tough enough considering the £30 spent on nitromors and paint when a powdercoater was the same cost for the next frame I had done.

where are these £30 powdercoaters at?

the ones I find in hipster london at least are £200+!

Damn, might have to have a Montana experiment, then. The glossiness looks good; it's hard to get that with Spray.Bike. Is it lacquered or just bare paint?

do you use the primer with the Spray.Bike ones?

so far cost is looking like a £5 for paint stripper, £5 for decals, £10 each for primer, paint & laquer

@Bez It's lacquered there, I think with spray.bike lacquer, but possibly Halfords since I wasn't keen on the way the spray.bike stuff came out.

Everyone says you can get a frame powder coated for £30. Mine was £140.

Also, if you read the OP...

(yes I could pay someone, but I want a project)

Damn, might have to have a Montana experiment, then. The glossiness looks good; it’s hard to get that with Spray.Bike. Is it lacquered or just bare paint?

Are you familiar with Montana paint? Start here- LINK

It's lush to use, it looks good enough to eat. They also do clear lacquer.

Everyone says you can get a frame powder coated for £30. Mine was £140.

It pays to shop about, there's 4 types IME.

Expensive:

Those that actually want to do it (and are making a name for themselves and money out of it)

Those that don't want to do it (and give a high price)

Cheap:

Those that will do it for cash in between other big jobs.

Those that do it inbetween fence posts and fire extinguishers who'll just do it badly.

I've only had 2 done, one was £50, the other £20, don't go for the £20 option. The £50 one has been left outside for 10 years and still looks fine when washed.

Watching this with interest, I have a Saracen Hack frame with paint flaked all over but I sometimes wonder if I'd rather spend £50 towards a new frame or on my other bikes

So, last question (for now) on the Montana, then: How well does it work on already-painted frames? Spray.Bike works nicely without having to do a thorough strip back to metal, can you get away with the same with Montana? (I guess worst case is you could just use a layer of Spray.Bike putty…)

There's a German fella called Martin who runs a paint shop called Etoe that puts videos on youtube showing how to get a decent finish from a rattle can.

https://www.youtube.com/user/EtoEGermany

Well

Just got the bike out the garage & had a proper look

There's quite a bit of chipping on the headtube from a tag along clamp

But the rest of the bike is actually in pretty good condition, it was just covered in a layer of grime & peeling lawyer was actually residue from old stickers all along the top tube!

The headtube I will probably just touch up & get a decal or something to cover it.

That said im itching to paint a frame now......

Those that hand paint there V dubs seem to like Rustoleum. They roller it on after brushing in the angles in your case, dry brush out the bubbles then flat off once dry. Repeat till you're happy.
Raptor paint too.

Update on the spray.bike.

I did my El Mar after it was fixed but as you may know I had to take it back and where the stays were re heated I have to repaint. I have to take a few more inches of paint off either side of the heated bit.

When I applied it I thought it was a little soft but now, a couple of months later it's tough as nails. Its hard work to get down even to the primer with Emery cloth or sandpaper; a quick 5 mins didn't do it. A Dremel with the sanding brush wheel didn't touch it. Quite surprised, and it bodes well.