Hi All,

Me and my missus have been discussing repainting our DJ frames (hers is an NS Holy Roller II and mine a Calibre Astronut).

What is the best way to go about a colour change using rattle cans?

Clean frames, lightly sand old paint, clean, spray, wet sand and lacquer?

Also are there cheaper alternatives that work just as well as spray.bike?

Advice and guidance much appreciated 🙂

Rattle can finishes are awful.they chip really easily.best of getting it done properly.think bikespray is just as bad

Heard good things about spray.bike paint, I’ve got a can I’m going to paint my dj bike with at some point too.

Anybody who says you can’t get a good finish with rattle cans is speaking absolute rubbish and isn’t doing it correctly or using crap paint.  I’ve had better finishes with cans than I’ve had with the gun before in fact.  Longevity will come down to the paint you use and if your prep and application is correct.

At home I’ve recently used rattle cans to respray my old Kona Kula frame as part of a build project for Mrs Beanoir.  My advice would be firstly to get good paint, do not use the paints you get in Homebase and B&Q, they are crap for this kind of job.  Find your local paint shop and have them mix 2K in activator cans for you, this will give you the hardest and most durable finish.

Decide if you want a flat colour, or metallic, pearlescent etc.  If you paint flat colour, then you don’t need a clear coat/lacquer on top as you would with a metallic.  Flat colours are more forgiving in that you can flat them back to remove any blemishes or orange peel etc and polish up.  With metallic, you can only flat back the clear coat, not the base coat colour – well you can but then you need to apply another coat of base before clear.

Prep is key, so make sure you’ve spent plenty of time sanding back the original paint, you don’t need to take it back to bare metal or anything like that, but make sure it’s smooth and clean.  You WILL see absolutely any blemish in the final paint, don’t be fooled into thinking the more paint you put on the more it will fill blemishes, it doesn’t work like that.

Try not to spray outdoors if possible, and in this heat at the moment the paint might dry before it hits the surface, so I’d advise doing it in the evening when it’s cooled down a bit.

Warm up rattle cans before you spray though, either in a bowl of hot water or in the sun.  This will help the paint flow better and it makes a big difference.

Pay attention to the time between coats, there is a time period in which you shouldn’t apply another coat.  If you leave too long between coats then you will have to wait for it to cure before keying and applying the next coat with some paints.  Often the paint requires that there is still some tackiness to it so that it will adhere, or you will end up with poor adhesion in the future.

The biggest improvement in my spraying skills came from learning to be more patient and applying thinner coats.

Good luck and show us how you get on!

The Kona looks great!

Thanks for the tips too, think we’ll try nic’s frame first before I do mine 😉

Honestly, I wouldn’t. Ring a local paint shop and ask how much to blast the old paint off and paint it.

You will be surprised how little it is vs buying paint (you always need more than you think), lacquer, nitromors, sandpaper etc.

And it will last better than a DIY job

Everything you need to know is already up there ^^^

Patience is everything. Your first attempt will be crap.

Good fun if you want a project and don’t mind putting the time in. If you just want a quick and easy colour change find a good local powder coater.

Prep , prep and more prep. I have done a few frames trying different types of paint over the years. A good finish can be achieved but the cost in time and materials is significant. Nowadays I would get a frame powder coated for durability.

Oh and don’t bother with Nitromors, the stuff you can buy in a shop doesn’t work anymore. Find your local trade paint place and ask what they use.

There’s a series of YouTube videos by “chasing the rainbow”, he walks through his respray of a Sonder Cortex. There might be some useful tips on there.

Just got some vinyl wrap delivered gonna give that a try at the weekend.

Won’t be attempting the joints, picked something that matches the existing base colour.

I guess you could rattlecan and the use clear wrap for protection too?

As well as warming the paint, I find warming the object to be painted helps.

Lot of people advising not to bother, but looks like some people have had decent results. They’re only DJ frames, so not going for showroom.

I’ll price it up and see if it’s worth it over just getting them sprayed by a pro.

I got on well with “montana gold” graffiti paint. It is a matt paint that covers really well (I believe this is similar to bike spray but cheaper). You will need to add a clear coat to finish. I used the montana clear. You can get 2k clear in a can for a more durable finish.. I did not fancy the fumes of the 2k paint. You will want to etch prime the bare aluminium. Just make sure your paints play nice together.. (I just made sure the paint solvents were the same. Montana is acetone based)

It will take considerable time to do a frame! Some will and have said get a professional to do it which is fine but not everyone gets that people like fun projects and the satisfaction doing it their self.

Advantage of DIY is the colour scheme is only limited by your imagination for no significant additional cost.

Sure a professional will do a better job on your first go. But once covered in mud / dust you will not see the difference. Have fun!

I’m just finishing off rebuilding my Camino following a respray using spray.bike cans – for £30 I’m very pleased

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That colour looks really nice! Is it Copper?

nice looking job darkroomtim

Just to echo what others have said: it’s a very rewarding thing to do IMHO. But on the other hand it takes a LONG time to do it properly. Prep is key, and that can take an age. It’s definitely easier and potentially cheaper (esp if you factor in longevity) to get someone else to do it but where’s the fun in that?

Yeah copper with gold flake added on top then laquer

Just to add, its recommended not to take the frame back to metal, in which case you have to then prime. All I was did was to give the frame a wash and then carefully go over it with surgical spirit to make sure no grease left on frame. I’d say prep time was say 20 mins. Total spray time was 2 hours. The copper spray (and the other colours) is quite “powder-ery” to dries almost instantly – same for the gold flake – seems it would be quite hard to get any runs. The laquer though is more of a liquid so just need to be bit more careful.

Yes you could get a better job from a pro – but tbh not by much – I had my CX SS bike resprayed last year from a local well known cycle sprayer and tbh there’s not much difference not from initial viewing anyway. The way I looked at it was, if I make a complete balls of it then it’s only £30 and I’ll take to a pro sprayer.

And finally !! – it’s so cheap and easy I’ll probably swap over paint schemes every year or so + plus if I gash the frame it’ll be dead easy to cover up again.