Singlespeed & Fixed Gear - DIY paint?

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I don't know how important this frame is to you, but if you want to spend $100 my friend will completely strip it, sand it, etc. and then paint it whatever color you want and clearcoat it too. He works at an R&D place near Washington/Halsted and they have a paint booth and whatnot. He does frames for people after hours..

Your other option would be to just scrub it down with some steel wool or something and hit it with a can of Krylon. That's the quickest/easiest/cheapest way to make it look better, won't last as long though.

-Jason

SG,

This past weekend, I just stripped a frame with aircraft stripper (available at autoparts store). Within a few minutes of very little scrubbing I was down to a beautiful steel frame. BE SURE to have your other bikes, auto, dog, etc. away when you use it though. The kind I had sprays on, and I got a little overspray on a lawnmower and within minutes there were bubbles in the paint.

I plan on following this up with anti-rust primer, then a good auto quality spraypaint, then some cool stickers, then clearcoat.

The bare steel is so pretty that I was tempted to just clearcoat. But the humidity is so high here in VA that it is showing some rust already. I'll rough it up with sandpaper and get on the primer this evening, I hope.

I chiseled my stops off the tube with a screwdriver and hammer, then filed down the rough parts.

Good luck.

If the cable stops are silver-brazed, you can apply some heat to melt the solder.
On my home-painted bike, I removed the paint with emery and a wire brush. I would probably leave the old primer in place now. Add a new primer coat, then spray on the colour coat with a speckle, not a solid coating. Speckles dont run, and 3 or 4 application will complete the coating.

Instead of Krylon, which is a good paint, look for Rustoleum hammerite.

It is a bit more expensive, a little harder to apply, and takes longer to really dry (say a week for complete hardness) but it can take a beating, and looks a lot better than hammerite.

Good stuff.

When I ever find a frame, I going to have it chemical dipped and start from scratch.

I've got plans. Just don't have the frame.

Edit:

You can have it powder coated for around 70 dollars.. but that will get inside the frame a tad too. But powder coating is the next best thing to a pro paint job.

http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=29524

That's another thread by a guy who painted his bike for $8. Check it out, I'm going to do that when I get my new frame...

This is mine, I painted with semigloss spray can paint and my wife detailed the lugs with Testors silver model paint. I recommend leaving the stock paint on the bike and just scuffing it and cleaning it to get the new paint to stick.
Sorry, the picture did not turn out to good, it was a scan and the res was to high, had to shrink the heck out of it to get it to fit.

Chuck, how is your paint job holding up? I have been thinking about the scuff up old paint and spray over method for my old frame, as it seems to be the simplest route.

-Jason

i sanded a frame and primered, spray painted it and clear coated it. unfortunately, the paint sucks... it doesn't compare to the factory paint job that i got on my road bike. it chips and scratches very easily. i don't know why, it's probably the cheapo paint... i think that if i were to paint a worthy frame again, i'd shell out a couple of hundred to do it right. it outweighs spending $50, plus many hours of mundane work, plus keeping up with the touchups where it chips all the time...

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i've painted several bikes, all with spray paint, and had great results. just make sure the you get all the original paint off (a little chip in the original paint will be massivly magnified in the new paint) and do several coats. rustoleum is turning into a way better paint than krylon (krylon's formula has become really watered down over the last couple years) however krylon makes an excellent clear coat.

and i've shaved a ton of cable stays and derailer mounts and such too, and an angle grinder or even a dremel works wonders. i can't imagine how tedious it would be to do it all by hand.