Painting a Bike Frame
 

I found a relatively good condition Dawes SST AL on craigslist today, however, the owner decided to sand off the "Dawes" logos. I personally would rather have the logos on the bike, but I can't change that now. Anyway, could I paint over the frame with another color? Like Purple? If so, then how would I do it?

Also, I have heard about powder coating. Is that a better route to take? How much does it cost?

Thanks,
Max :)

Powdercoat it. Should cost somewhere around $100 for a frame/fork.

The frame is aluminum. If you powdercoat it you will get an orange peel texture in a couple places. Its normally towards the ends of the tubes, near the headset areas. You don't notice it unless you really want to. If you're fine with that, then powdercoat it. Otherwise, ask around at autobody shops, they can paint it.

The fork is carbon fiber, I have no idea if they can even powdercoat carbon. Ask around.

You can't powdercoat things not made of metal. Carbon has to be painted.

There you have it.

But I wouldn't paint it anyway. I like carbon. You can get the frame alone powder coated for like $50-75.

if the fork is carbon i would keep the carbon look...

if you felt the need to go the rattlecan route, you would need to strip the frame of its paint with a paint stripper like aircraft stripper. can be bought in hardware and auto stores. then when the paint is all off, you sand it down with a 600 grit sandpaper. then you would need an etching primer, which eats into the aluminum a bit so the primer stays on the frame. then many many many thin coats of an auto spray paint, sold in auto stores. THEN you would need to spray many thin coats of clearcoat.

but if you can get it powder coated for 50 bucks, that would probably be just as cheap and WAY less time consuming lol (probably better overall quality too)

Polished aluminum > paint.