Home respray – flash paint job

I’ve had a basic respray done to get a nice base colour but want to add a bit extra. I’m thinking of doing something similar to a Blizzard with the head tube and start of the top and down tubes in a different colour with some trailing details of some sort further down the tubes.

I was thinking a can of car touch up paint. Having never done this before any advice on prepping the frame, what type of masking/templates to use and how many coats I’ll need etc are welcome..

Thanks

Rio

Unless you’re prepared to spend a bit of money having it done professionally, its a very labour intensive skilled job to do right,car touch up paint is quite brittle and chips easily,TBH its easy to get it wrong.

That said, you’ll need to mask up and then cut out the shapes you want with a scalpel,spray then repeat,overlaying as you go, once you’ve achieved the desired effect ,at least three coats of a lacquer to protect the finish, and then spend some time carefully polishing with 1200 grit wet and dry to achieve a mirror like finish.
But as above,it isn’t easy to get good results without an airbrush/compressor……lots of skill and patience……..good luck

Sounds like a job that will require time and patience. Two things I don’t really have. Oh well I’ll give it a go.

Will it need a light sanding between coats? or just on the final coat of lacquer?

Is there a better type of spray paint to use, radiator paint, Hammerite etc?

Oh well I’ll give it a go.

Good for you! Whats the worse that can happen? It’ll make a great thread that we can all giggle at admire your handy work 😀

Oh and good luck

I’ll take some pictures to showthe before and after. Hopefully I will cause gasps of admiration but I expect it will just be giggles.

Just need to get the paint and a big bit of cardboard…

I resprayed an old raleigh frame when I was about 15. I hung it up inside a washing machine box and climbed in there with it, and a couple of cans of hammerite.

Climbed out about 20mins later looking like a smurf, I’d completed the worlds shonkiest paint job, most of which fell off when I put the components back on.

Hmmm hopefully I’ll have more luck than you did. As I’m only doing a small area I wonder if brushing it on would work?

hmm really automotive aerosol is acrylic paint. its probably about the best your going to get in fairness.

no need to really sand between coats, once you’ve masked off what you want to spray i would just gently "dull" the paint below with some red scotchbrite pad just to give it something to key to. (this is assuming the base paint is a good finish) spray away in light dusting coats, with 10mins between coats allowing the paint to "flash off". if its a solid colour no need to lacquer, if its a metallic you will need to lacquer, don’t sand it back or else you will see the scratches through the lacquer. same rules as above, leave the base coat to flash off for 10mins then lacquer 3 times with 10mins between, leave it for 10mins and remove the masking, otherwise as the paint begins to tack off you will pull the edges up with the tape

Hope that helps, i have done a fair bit of automotive painting in the past 5yrs or so (including some MTBs and all sorts) so hopefully it makes sense

Cheers Pinches you have given me renewed hope that this might just work

thats just probably the best way you could do it at home, it no way ensures a good finish.

Put the spray cans in a bucket of warm water 15 minutes or so before you want to use them

I was going to try a put a patch of tartan on this but bailed out. Awkward to get temp/conditions in shed this time of year so stuck with basic but I did comission some sticker alterations. Hammerite car spray and laquer over last 2 months.

Good luck with it.

I resprayed lowers on a set of 05 Z1 FR’s. First attempt- ‘ripples’. Second attempt (Turqoise) was spot on. however its about as durable as a Santa Cruz paintjob (even with Lacquer ontop). I dont think car spray is ‘right’ for mtb

I have an old Hardrock GSX that I want to do now, what should I use instead of Hammerite then?