[Closed] Paint or Powdercoat? what's the diff?

*pulls up chair, holding aluminium santacruz frame, freshly stripped of parts ready for new colour...

From past experience you pay for what you get. For powdercoating a frame I've had it done for 15. Argos cycles I think bake their paint and it's hard as nails and last longer and looks better for 100. Depends how often you like changing tour colour scheme I suppose too! Other peoples experiences vary from mine though

Taking our 3rd frame for powdercoating tomorrow, this was the last one and still looks as good after 12 months of abuse

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Tracey

I had a quote for £50-£60 for powder coat of frame+forks of road frame. Is that sounding reasonable? What are you paying Tracey?

Well, to truly answer you question would take quite a while, but here are some general pointers.

Powdercoat; tougher, cheaper, less smooth, less 'deep' colour, less range of colours

Wet paint; chips more easily, glossier, deeper colour, wider range of colours

this is a very broad brush stroke (pardon the pun), each of those points could be countered with 'but I've seen beautiful powdercoats' or 'my wet painted frame looks as good as they day I bought it' both of which could be very true for high quality finishes.

Personally, if it's a classic road frame (especially if lugged) and you want it to look nice I'd be inclined to go wet paint, the lugs will look better, and especially if you want panels or masking then wet paint is much more readily do-able. If it's just to get it rolling as a round the town beater, go powder.

They are just ways of applying a coating.

WEt paint goes on wet and then dries either through chemical reaction and/or solvent evaporation. Powder coat goes on dry and is then melted in an oven. More often than not powder coating also undergo a chemical reactionwhen melted.

The differences are down to the coating types. You can have the finish, strength etc in either if done by someone skilled with high quality materials. In general though you will get a better finish with wet paint. Powder coatings will be tougher as a result of the design of powder coatings- they are generally designed to be tough! Powder coating will probably be cheaper as a good paint job requires more time and skill.

IIRC Santacruz waffle on somewhere about not powder coating their frames due to the oven temps.

Re-powder coated both my Brooklyns and they were beautifull when done-looked almost like wet used engine oil poured over them

The Racelink frame, brake arm and Profiles was £65, the Park frame £35.
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My personal experience from doing both (with individual frames) is,

Powdercoating: Insanely quicker, insanely cheaper, tougher, better finish, limited colours, less cool, there will be a guy two houses up who does it.

Painting: Massively more expensive and longer, chips in an instant, very cool, you'll not see your frame for three weeks because you have to post it Londonstan.

It's PC's and MAC's to me. If you put ease of implementation and economy before being able to boast a bit about having something that is a ****ing nightmare to own, then get a powdercoat. If waxing yourself silly about owning the same thing in a different (albeit expensive yet pointless) shell, then get it sprayed.

Paid £45 last year for the Enduro stripping and powdercoating

there was some faintly funny and very STW macho engineering posturing on here a few weeks ago about whether or not powdercoating weakens a frame.

[url= http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/inspire-me-show-me-your-sc-bullits#post-1635283 ]Near the end of this thread.[/url]

Just got back from dropping Abigales frame off, there were some great colours to pick from, she has gone for a pinky purple metalic with the swing arms done in white

Tracey

What the hell is that extra chain on the LHS for?

there was some faintly funny and very STW macho engineering posturing on here a few weeks ago about whether or not powdercoating weakens a frame.

**** off cheese breath we got our handbags out.

We powdercoat 8ft diameter, 2mm thick reflectors for antennas and they maybe move 0.1mm as they go through the ovens. I'd be surprised if a bike frame distorted by a noticeable amount.

buzz-lightyear - Member

What the hell is that extra chain on the LHS for?

Brooklyn Machine Works-Racelink jackshaft system, the left crank drives a spindle that rotates inside the swingarm pivot and drives a small sprocket on the right hand side that transmits drive to the back wheel, result is 10" of travel that pedals like a 4" bike.
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a what, what ?

looks mental.