Framebuilders - What to do about rust pitting?

I picked up a '97 lemond frame on the cheap due to a fair amount of surface rust. It this point most of the rust has been addressed by stripping the paint and sanding. The top tube suffers from pitted areas around the cable guides. I was able to clean them up with some rust jelly, however i'm planning to have the frame powdercoated and it seems that the small pits would be visable through the coating.

The current plan is to get them again with the rust jelly, thoroughly wash, and fill with a body filler...'

I am usually able to rely only on the search button here- but this seemed to be a less common problem...

Contact your powdercoater and ask them what to use to fill the pits. I recall hearing about some compound that will hold up to the high heat of the cure oven but can't recall the details.

Would the pitting not result in thinner metal and hence weakness in the area? Considering how thin bike tubes already are, I was wondering if one should look at brazing or silver soldering the area to restore some strength. Of course, it would depend on how deep the pits are! Just a thought!

Regards
Mike

-pulled from hotrodders.com in response to "Wouldn't it be nice if there were a type of Bondo that would withstand the heat of powder coating."




As far as I know, there is. A powder coating place once told me they could coat over the top of "all metal", which is basically a filler with metal in it, I guess.

I don't know if it's true or not, just an interesting thought.

has anyone else dealt with body filler and powdercoating?

-pulled from hotrodders.com in response to "Wouldn't it be nice if there were a type of Bondo that would withstand the heat of powder coating."




has anyone else dealt with body filler and powdercoating?


You need a special filler material that can take the high bake temps typical for powder coat. Do a google search (I did and it turned up lots of information).

http://www.alvinproducts.com/Content.asp?id=20

If it were me I'd just powder coat the thing and be done with it. The pitts will not show that much, if at all. Powder coat is quite thick and fills small depressions. It doesn't have the surface gloss of wet paint so a small amount of surface irregularity shouldn't detract that much anyway.

Any opinions on filling the pits with JB weld> its rated to 600f and curing temp for powder coating is around 400f.

?