BillK

I purchased an old steel Nishiki frame off eBay and am building it up as a fixed/singlespeed (thanks Sheldon for the inspiration). The paint was in pretty tough shape (bleached by the sun, some chips, decals just about gone), so I decided to have it bead blasted and powdercoated gloss black.

So far, so good. But I'd like to put a few decals on it, as well as paint the lugs a contrasting color (gold maybe?), and spray on a lacquer clear coat (to protect the decals/lugs). Should I:

1. Go for it.
2. Go with Plan B (i.e., use 1shot for the contrasting color, lay on the decals, but skip the clear coat).
3. Forget the whole thing and just stick with a simple powdercoat.

Thanks in advance.

NAH

Lacquer should work fine, it's about the best top coat/carrier/finish made. With that said, I don't know if you've used it before or not, but be careful with it. The quality lacquers are going to be Nitrocellulose. If you don't know, that's gun cotton (the stuff used in bullets that explodes). Among other things, the vapor are highly toxic and dried powder can ignite w/o open flames. I'm not saying don't use it, I do for finishing wood, but be careful with it. I've heard there's "water based" lacquers for wood finishing, but I'm not sure if they have any that have pigment, or if it's suitable for metal, or what. Either way, good luck with it.
NAH