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has anyone any experience painting a frame with a Paint Spray Gun? I have a bare frame to paint, a compressor and a Spray Gun sat in the shed. I've done it with Spray.Bike cans, but feel with the equipment I have, this must be a better/cheaper way.
Can anyone recommend a supplier for base, paint coat and finishing. any advice would be welcome as there Doesn't seem to be much info out there on the materials for finishing bike frames.
It won’t be cheaper but it will be better. Last time I painted a frame it cost me about £120 in materials between the 2k primer and clear, and 2x different pigment colours.
I'd probably skip the hassle and reach for the spraymax 2k primer, whatever montana gold colours you fancy and some spraymax 2k clear.
You're going to need extraction/respiration anyway but no mixing or equipment cleanup from a can
And paint cups, strainers and consumables.
Mega hardwearing finish on the frame though. I once gave a mate a a cannondale chase frame that I’d painted in a two tone Candy finish when I was messing about - took him hours and hours of sanding to remove the paint because he brother wanted it polished.
You'll need a respirator with filters rated for organic gases and vapours, I think the required filter rating is "A2P2". You really don't want to be breathing that stuff into your lungs.
I'm pretty decent with a gun, did my motorbike that way, it turned out great. But I couldn't be arsed to paint a bike that way though. All the mixing, cleaning, etc is the same as a big project and then you spray for like 20 seconds. The amount of wastage is pretty high. And the prep is a pain in the arse on a bike frame. And if it's a mountain bike you'll instantly ride it into a rock so it doesn't matter how lovely a job it is.
2k spray in ringpull cans does a very good job and is ideally suited to smaller jobs, which realistically is what a bike is. I mean, I probably wouldn't do that either, it's so much time and hassle and not even cheap at the end of the day, I'd send it to steve the anodiser or to cerakote up north and get it all done for a little more money but all the hassle of puttign a stamp on it. But then it depends if you want the result, or the project.
I've had good results with rattle cans, but it's not that cheap, and takes time. Prep is a big one. I sprayed a road bike in pearlescent white - that was tricky as the primer had to be spot on as the paint was transparent. Then lots of top coats of lacquer. I've just done my old 90's MTB in a metallic gunmetal grey and I already had the primer and lacquer, so just £20 for the paint, but add in new decals, some wet and dry etc soon added up. Fairly easy to do being rattle can, and I did it in the garden on a mild day, whizzed into the garage to dry. Paint tins kept in the house to keep warm.
I've yet to find a good supplier of paint, always works out very expensive and I end up wondering why I didn't just use rattle cans.
Main advice is to use a mini spray gun rather than a full sized one. Much easier to get into the tight areas and much less wastage/overspray.