Yes, but can you see that your views are a little.... limiting?

Yes- this is a "Vintage" forum, and yes, there are people on here with an intent to restore to "pristine"-

But the whole disdain for "spray paint" thing I see quite a bit here is a bit snobbish and impractical-

It's simply not cost-effective to worry about a powder coat all the time when a lot of bikes acquired in pieces are ALREADY a lot of cost just to make ridable- nothing wrong with a good covering of spray paint and/ or clearcoat!

In fact a WHOLE LOTTA equipment out there now- would still be more functional today- even in a "vintage' sense-
if someone had taken the time and spent a few dollars to give it a shot of paint 20 or 30 years ago.

Yes- I understand the differences between these things. But take chrome for instance. Chrome is chrome- it's generally viable, or not- beyond that point- once it's pitted to a certain degree, it can't be bought back. If it's been rusty and rubbed off, the rust more easily returns. Rechroming is especially costly and less practical than a store-bought powder coat.


These chrome and anno metallic paints are all fairly new things- they work better in some places than others- because stuff will scrape off of chrome fairly easily. But like I said- if it's silver chrome paint on chrome, it barely shows- and it keeps the rust away.

No anno paint is not like old school BMX vintage annodizing- or an anno rim- but it has its use and provides protection-

the beauty of spray paint is that if you can keep some back- you can just keep putting some on if it scratches- with a powder coat- you gotta play that game of touch up a bit more-

I like to add color to something- but the main function of the non-standard things I paint on a bike is usually to protect that part,
all this paint goes really well especially on corroded spokes- not only looks great, but will give the spokes years more of servive.
I wish I'd taken some better "before" pictures of this wheelset- you'd see the difference then.

The flat bar I've stuck on this Atala for now was chromed and VERY rusty a week ago- now it looks... FABULOUS!



I got those blue steel bars on the motorized bike above about 4 years back and very cheap- well-under $10 delivered- blue anno paint on steel- never pretending much to be annodized alloy-flat ends on the crosspiece so it will fit a cruiser stem and 1 inch gnarl
but now I see that same BMX bar in both red and blue usually selling for about $40 on ebay-


I DO HAVE red anno alloy bars on it now- I got reasonably a couple years back on Amazon- then they disappeared- and generally overpriced by the oli controlled corporate conglomerate that suppresses us.

yes- I know the dif- I've been around bikes over 50 years, but I guess some people may not-