Painting my fixie
 

sorry if this is a repost. i just picked up my friends old fixie conversion, its got lots of rust and im trying to restore it. can anyone give me suggestions on how i should go about strippin the old paint and putting on some new paint. aslo, what kind of paint i should get and where i could purchase it? thanks for your help.

i used duplicolor, and it turned out pretty sweet.. not chipping as much as the usual rattlecan job. be sure to prep properly and clear coat the hell out of it.

http://www.velospace.org/node/872

I might recommend paying someone to blast and powdercoat it. Unless you are either a pro painter OR into putting in hours of prep work, inhaling a bunch of toxic chemicals, getting a finished job that will probably disappoint you, and chipping it shortly thereafter, the $100 or whatever that a walnut blast/ powdercoat will cost is basically worth it.

i guess it's a matter of 60-80 of supplies to do it on yr own.. which was fun as hell, and another reason to hang out and drink beers, or pay a shop 200 for the prep and paint.

For sure, if painting sounds like fun to you, do it; you will save a little $ and have some bonding time with your frame.

+1. You will not regret paying a little more for a powdercoating. When your spray paint job chips the very first time the bike is locked up, and then every time after that, you'll regret not going the powdercoat route. In my experience, it's EXTREMELY durable and looks great.

i am in the proscess right now of painting a beater. just have fun with it

on sffixed, there's a recommend to call up mass tech coat in hayward, ca. . 75 out the door. but that's if you'er in the bay.. but once again, i did have fun and painted mine myself.

If you sand don't use a chemical stripper. Just wet sand it. You don't even need to get absolutely all the paint off (all of the rust of course though). I've always painted mine with autopaint my pops had left over from a motorcycle. The only stupid mistake I have made was using a black primer with the black cleatcoat-less paint because that's what I had. You can't tell what you are coating with the outer paint, so certain spots (mainly the bottom of the top tube) is matte finish.

If the bike is just a beater, go for spraypaint, if it actually has trackends and will be desirable to have for you or someone else in the future, pay to get it done right.

I just finsihed painting my fixie and it has turned out surprisingly well. I stripped the old paint with chemical paint stripper, used steel wool to remove all the loose particles, gave it three coats of sandable primer (sanding after each coat) and sprayed 3 coats of my top paint. To seal the deal, I used rust-oleum clear gloss to give it a professional shine. Give yourself a full weekend to work on your ride.

i just spent $100 to get my torelli frame & fork blasted and powdercoated from a rattlecan job. i can't wait to see it. my bianchi has also been blasted & powdercoated, and i love it. i am a fan of the durability.

incidentally, i am so stoked on this torelli frameset that i just got..

ditto to what everyone else said about powdercoating. i prepped my bike EXTREMELY carefully, used primer, applied a TON of coats of paint, and then loaded on the clear coat... a few months later and i was still riding the paintbus to chipsville.

got my frame & fork sandblasted & powdercoated (70 + 30) for 100 for a basic color sparkle ,metalic ect. cost more. sometimes they have leftover from another job they can throw you for a few $ more