Originally Posted by
Andy_K
I know a bunch of people here have experience with rattle can paint jobs. I'm doing this for the Clunker 100 Challenge, so hold onto your "powder coat is cheap" recommendations. I'm looking for advice on choosing a spray paint.
Right now, I'm looking at two options "
Rust-Oleum Stops Rust Gloss Protective Enamel" and "
Rust-Oleum Stops Rust Metallic". According to the label, the Enamel dries in 4 hours while the Metallic dries in 30 minutes. I'm not sure what that means for durability and self-smoothing. I've used the Enamel before and been happy with the results. I'm trying to decide if I'll be happy with the Metallic. Yeah, it's for a bike that I'm going to be giving away in a few months, but it's destined to be a window display item if I can get it looking nice enough. I know, that sounds weird for a Clunker bike, but in this case it's true.
FWIW, I've taken the bike down to bare metal and will be using a proper primer. If I use the Metallic, I'll probably also add a clear top coat.
Any advice? Other recommendations?
...I have pretty much come to the conclusion that what you use as a color coat doesn't matter much, if you prime well and do a final clear coat with urethane. However, after much experimentation with a lot of different metallic and non metallic paints, some of the metallics do have a tendency to go on a little rough, and don't surface level to smooth out. Partly this is related to whatever they use as the flake (reflective element) in the paint. The Mylar flake metallics seem to go on smoother than the ones that use something else.
So given your parameters I'd choose a nice, saturated color in a Rustoleum spray enamel. And I would try very hard to saturate the painted surface just short of running, which will help the paint go on with a high gloss surface. Sometimes those instructions to go with a bunch of lighter coats don't allow for this aspect of painting with enamel.
I think I know the kind of Rustoleum metallic you are talking about (the quick dry stuff), and it goes on and dries pretty rough. I used it once to do golden stars on a gaspipe DBS 3 speed I ride as an errand bike sometimes.
