[Closed] Frame powder coating

This is going back *years* but Armourtex in Hackney used to be the go to for the London fixed lot etc-  did a frame for me and it was an excellent job.  Not sure of their current trading position though.

http://armourtexcycles.tumblr.com/

I can't recommended anyone near you.

A few words of warning though, I had mine done last year and I've regretted it ever since.

I was all set to go for the full Deluxe Job at Argos Racing, but was put off by the 3 week wait (and they want the frame the whole time, you can't book and wait).

I picked a local place that I found some old posts on various forums saying they were good.

They said it would take "a good week" it actually took 18 days in total.

They said you can have any colour you want, metallics, peals, all sorts and in theory you can - BUT, a box of whatever they use costs a few hundred quid, fancy finishes even more and they wouldn't commit to spending £500 or whatever on the colour I fancied on the off-chance enough other customer would go for it - it ended up a choice of 8/10 basic colours, if you look on most Powder Coating websites they list the same short list of colours, most are flat/matte.

It wasn't clear to me at the time, although when I moaned about it here everyone replied with a sort of "duh yeah" so you might already know this - but it's a fairly industrial process, it will (hopefully) be stripped correctly, my LBS mentioned someone with a completely written off frame after a aggressive stripping so only use places they have worked on BICYCLE frames, a lot say bike frames because they've stripped a couple of old steel motorbike frames, anyway mine came back with powder coat in the head tube, BB Shell, everywhere - it was another week in the LBS whilst they faced and cleaned all the threads and they were nervous doing some of them.

The finish I settled on was a sort of metallic grey - it's not quite 'stealth' or 'murdered out' or whatever. It doesn't seem particularly hard-wearing, I've still getting heal rubs, cable rubs etc at about the same pace that it did when it was painted. I should have probably invisiframed it, but that was kind of the point of going to powder over paint.

It was given a couple of coats of lacquer after it was paint, this is cracking and crazing now, started on the swing arm which of course flexes slightly when you tighten the the rear axle and generally in use.

Frankly, I hate it, it made me fall out of love with it from an ascetic point of view, I was all set to buy some new frame decals to replace the old ones in a contrasting colour, but I simply can't be arsed - I started thinking about it's replacement almost the moment I got it back. (Plan is the buy a Bird Aeris Lt, fit a Invisiframe kit and leave it the hell alone).

Cost wise between the Powder place and the LBS bill it would have been cheaper to set it to Argos.

Time wise the 3 week wait that put me off actually became 3 and a half weeks.

It's not very hard wearing and now, 7 months after I had it done, I think it looks worse than it did before I had the work done.

I know other STWers have had theirs done for pocket money and they've done a great job and masked all the important bits, but I'd never do it again.
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Thanks guys for sharing your experience.

I had my frame repainted by argos cycles under warranty in 2003. Paint job is still half decent!

I'd be happy to send mine their is I needed a frame painting 🙂

Not near you sorry OP but Trestan Finishers in Soton do a great job powder coating bike frames/forks/components, they do loads and cover threads properly, zinc phosphate prime etc. £45 a frameset one colour so a good price and have been pleased with the many bits and pieces I have taken there, tough shiny finshes too. You can post stuff to them.Time - ranges from a couple of days to a couple of weeks depending what big jobs they have on. http://www.trestanfinishers.com/

It's not so easy to find a place with a good rep for pushbikes, but motorbikes are easier and those guys are more demanding than we are.

Another option is anodising- you won't get a true metallic, but the colour remains fairly transparent so you get some metal shining through. I've had 2 done by Steve The Anodiser and love it, I wouldn't get an alu frame powdercoated now unless I wanted a colour that can't be anodised.