Originally Posted by
Der_Kruscher
I may be a dissenter here but a GOOD powder-coater can give your bike a nice "paint" job for $100 or less - particularly since your bike doesn't need extensive prep. Plenty of custom steel builders use powder and when done properly powder can look as good as paint (metal flake being an exception) and will be more durable. If you go this route make sure that the powder-coater has lots of experience with bikes. As mentioned previously, round tubes, lugs, and the numerous threaded bits give the inexperienced guys a lot of room to f_ck up.
Powder coating vs. wet paint has been debated here very often.
The chances of an inexpensive powder coat job being as effective at preventing corrosion as a professional wet coat paint job are not that great.
It's in the physics of the film thickness, and porosity of the coating layer vs. layers.
I have stripped three powder coat jobs, and have one to do. The one on the to do list I know will have rust below. the others did not SHOW rust, but it was really evident upon chemical stripping.
The failure was from small essentially microscopic holes or bubbles in the coating that allowed moisture to enter over time. Also, maintaining film thickness at sharp edges is not going to happen unless the part is well over coated to the point of hiding detail, its in the physics of how the powder changed phase over time.
A multicoat powder job should be effective, but the chances of hiding detail rise much. And the costs increase.
Maybe on a lugless frame.