Hi guys, I’m buying a new bike after xmas, it’ll be an On One 45650B but what frame should I get?

Raw or black.

The idea of a raw frame is new to me, what are the positives and negatives. I quite like the look of it to be honest.

Cheers

I’ve got the raw. It looks awesome and makes you go faster. Suppose the negative is that is might not hold its money as well as a painted frame as it will look “worn”

I’ve had my raw 456 for just over a year and its fairing pretty well, little bit of rust under the lacquer but it adds a bit of character.

Raw! Got 2 ,one is years old and still looks great, only got new one because i had a spare reverb.ps paint chips and looks shabby,raw just looks raw

Not steel, but got a raw alloy Nomad and still looks a little unique. Only thing is cable rub has polished some of it through the lacquer while the rest is a little more dull. Stone chips are noticeable underneath but they’re chips out of the lacquer. Really need to strip the lacquer, polish it up and re-lacquer.

Also got a raw 456… but it’s carbon. It’s a bit weird. In some light it looks great, and lovely stealth look. Sometimes though it looks like mismatched patches stuck together.

Raw steel looks cool, but as mentioned it will continue to rust under the lacquer! Not so much its structural, but it does change colour. Of course your painted one does that too… you just can’t see it.

The painted one won’t be rusting under the paint, that’s the whole point of painting steel to prevent it rusting.

Shouldn’t really be rusting under the clear lacquer either…

Polyester powdercoats are a bit porous so the ‘raw’ one and the painted one will rust the same. Only difference is you can see it on the ‘raw’ ones.

It really shouldn’t be rusting under the paint. The lacquer I can understand more as that will be utter sh*t from a protection point of view.

But it makes you wonder how much are On-One taking folk for a ride if they are producing steel frames that are so poorly treated and painted that they rust!

Don’t think On One taking anyone for a ride. Never seen or heard of a rusted one. Small patch on one bike.

Surely if there’s any damage or imperfections in the finish it will rust regardless of whether it’s lacquer or paint..

It would take years for it to rust through though, especially On One gas pipe. You’ll have got bored of it and put it in the shed or on eBay long before any surface corrosion under the laquer is worth worrying about.
Most steel frames aren’t coated in the inside either so they will be doing exactly the same from the inside out, whether painted, powder coated or smothered in butter.

At least with a raw frame it always looks scruffy (rat look, I suppose) so you don’t have to worry about keeping it ‘nice’.

Love my RAW one, all raw steal frames will get spider web rust lines after a few years but as said above, it all adds to the character.

shameless chance to show bike picture

As stated above all powdercoated steel frames will rust under the lacquer.

When painting using wet paint the primer is usually zinc based so the zinc will act as the sacrificial metal which will stop rusting.

Zinc primer cannot be made to be clear, which is why you don’t tend to see wet painted clearcoated frames. There are clearcoat primers which are marketted as having corrosion protection but i have no idea how these work.

I had a clear powdercoated frame, took about a month before a massive rusty handprint appeared on the downtube (moisture from transferring frame from sandblaster to powdercoat booth). It looked rubbish.