[Closed] Rattle can recommendations

Surprise her by painting it with a brush and some gold hammerite. That'll sharp change her mind.

I painted a bike with  https://spray.bike stuff recently, the paint it is great stuff, comes out evenly and dries almost immediately. I regret bothering with the lacquer though, as it didn't seem to do anything.

What toasty says up there - really nice stuff spray bike. Have a look on their socials 👌

Air hardening powdercoat

I've used Spray.bike and TBH I was unimpressed. It goes on nicely but it chips and scratches super easily even when lacquered. Maybe I wuz doin it rong.

The Halfords stuff is not very good and orange peels way to easily ....

How about some bling in her favourite colour? Grey with Hope purple bits would look pretty cool IMO.

I've done two bikes and two suspension forks with spray.bike and it's easy to work with but isn't very tough. You can get a good finish with the lacquer if you're careful to build the layers and do some wet & dry finishing and then polish up.

Another big thumbs up for Spray.bike. Its so good. I will post up pics of my finished bike soon, just waiting for the last decals to arrive.

But here's the frame... In Gulf Racing colours

Will be interested to hear how durable it turns out to be and how painstaking your spraying process was… I'm guessing very 😉

Yeah, thats a good point - durability has a question mark, but hopefully it wont be too bad.

The actual paint process was easy enough, its the masking that was difficult for me, especially on a full susser with all the bearing ports. Sanding an initial key was timeconsuming too on the complex parts (rocker link, stays etc)

I'm so anal about stuff though that it had to be as perfect as I could get it. Luckily I have patience when doing stuff like this.

Orange peel is about prep or lack thereof, no?

My gues is all rattle cans give finishes with poor durability and most can give a good finish - that's my experience with B&Q, Hellfrauds, Aldi and stull from a car spares place done to order.

You'll need to etch prime it as well if you strip it right back.

Its worth pointing out that with spray.bike you dont need to strip the old paint. Simply sand a key with fine grade wet n dry and spray over the top.

Cynic-al - No, its not sadly. Its influenced by a whole plethora of inputs. Even proper spray guns on compressors get orange peel, its just not as pronounced as with rattle cans.

Thanks all, will show the young boss the spray bike website and colour options.

No paint system is durable enough to survive teenage carelessness.

I wouldn't, to get a really good finish is a shitload of work and still not as good as a pro job. To get a crap finish is still quite a lot of work. Powdercoat starts from about £40 for a decent company so it's barely more expensive than cans.

I've not used spray.bike. Best I have used otherwise- Hycote primers and clearcoats, and Halfords basecoats. (the comment up the page has to be user error- spraying too close or too obliquely maybe? I suppose I'm better with a rattle can than most folks but still, it's just not an issue if you're doing it right. And if you do it wrong you can get orange peel with anything) Hycote are also good value compared to most others. But they're no tougher than any other typical clearcoat.

Why bother with all that stripping down and painting malarkey when there are multipack stickers out there waiting to be stuck on.

No paint system is durable enough to survive teenage carelessness.

Also, given that you've got quite a nice bike there: no bicycle resale value is durable enough to survive a home respray.

I know nothing about vinyl wraps, so, how about a vinyl wrap?

Vinyl wraps - tell me more?

@Bez I bought the frame fork back wheel and most other bits save for brakes discs front wheel for £30 from a lad off Gumtree, so not too bothered about resale value.

BARGIN

You can get 2pac lacquer in a can these days, it’s expensive but worth the money.

BARGIN

Depends what the lad off gumtree paid for it off the previous owner...........................

At that price I'd assume the previous "transaction" was somewhat unilateral…

P

What Northwind said.

My local powder coater has a full range of samples/swatches up on the wall.  Just get madam to pick a colour and let them do the rest.  Or show her the RAL chart, on Google, in advance so she can narrow her options down a bit.

The finish has to be better and will certainly be more durable.  Probably getting a bit nippy, out, for spraying with rattle cans (unless you have a heated workspace) and then there's the issue of breathing in the fumes.  The price won't be that much more so I'd just give it to a pro, personally...

I used a "one coat" spray can to do my bike.  Plastikote IIRC ( I think sold under another name at the time).  Initially it looked good, it has proved to be very soft and now its a chipped mess

I have repainted bikes with rattle cans before.  Its quite tedious to get a good finish.  Orange peel can be avoided by warming the cans up to 35c or so - I put them in warm water for 10 mins. also make sure the frame is warm.  The paint will flow better and be sprayed at a higher pressure.

If doing it the proper way - primer, topcoat, lacquer -  do not underestimate how long it takes.  drying time between each coat of each layer and then after each layer is done allow to harden for a couple of days before the tedious process of rubbing down.  Many hours of labour, could take up to a week

Even then the finish you will get will be inferior to a proper paint job.

Net time I am going to go for powder coating