-holiday76

Or something similiar? Do you have pics? I'm worried that the thick powder coat will take away too much from the lug detail. I realize how pretentious this sounds...

I'd like to see what your experiences might have been. This is for my px-10 frame that is already stripped. It's got an unoriginal fork and came to me cheap, I can't imagine spending the money on paint and I'm not up for another home paint job, so I'm thinking a cheap powder coat might be the ticket.

ColonelJLloyd 

My LBS owner has powder coated several frames with Nervex and other semi-ornate lugs. You're not being pretentious, and if it is a heavy coat of a solid color it does look too thick and takes away the detail of the lug. I can take some iPhone photos next time I'm there.

That said, powder coating is very, very durable and a quality, three-stage, semi-transparent job doesn't look as heavy.

Somewhere around the interwebs is a photo of a Hetchins that got a super-thick powder coat job. It made me cry.

Edit: here's the Hetchins. I just threw up in my mouth a little.

rhm

I've heard you can get a frame painted pretty cheaply by having an automotive painter spray it while they're doing a car. You don't get a full range of color choices that way, of course. Zaphod did that to his Super Course.

-holiday76

yah that looks like crap. I had my bianchi powdered and i think it looks fine. But they were not very ornate lugs. It also helped that I outlined the lugs after the powder coat.

I'd never do it though if it came out like that Hetchins.

dbakl

I'm thinking of doing a couple of frames with powdercoat just because I can't afford paint. I've been afraid of getting a blobby thick mess like that. Yikes! Why powdercoat a Hetchins?

ColonelJLloyd 

I think the Hetchins is an extreme example. Like I said, it can be done to look really nice. A discounted wet paint job at an auto painter is worth looking into.

It has plain old lugs, but I'm very happy with the job on my Voyageur. The process for this color was a coat of black, then a translucent copper, then clear. It is not thick like a lot of solid color powder coats. The LBS owner had two frames to be powder coated. I chose the color and we had all three done for $300. Can't beat that.



Are you going to put decals on the PX-10?

-holiday76

this is interesting:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/strongl...7622261269351/



the owner posts here. Hope he doesnt mine me using his pic. These look excellent.

mparker326

Everything Stonglight does is top notch!

ColonelJLloyd 

True that, but I don't think the powder coated bikes belong to him (see the Flickr pages).

southpawboston

that's the work of spectrum, in colorado, i believe. they can do amazing things with powder. i've heard that a lot of powder coaters try to "infiltrate" spectrum's facilities to learn their secrets!

nope, he just posted examples of their work.

outlining the lugs on a heavily powder coated bike is the only thing that saved my from having the bike re-stripped and done over. apparently some really dark colors like black are a pain to do in powder. every color formulation has a distinct flow characteristic, and some can go on nice and thin and provide full coverage, while others have to go on thick and goopy.

here's my raleigh comp GS powder coated in black. the gold outlining "saved" the otherwise really blurred out lug shorelines:

-holiday76

Stronglights stuff provides constant inspiration to my builds. If my stuff comes out half as nice as his i'm happy. If you're out there Stronglight, thanks!

I can only imagine that the spectrum stuff probably costs something similar to paint. I'll have to research that.

that blue and yellow job i posted above is actually what I wanted to do on my PX.

Zaphod Beeblebrox 

I've been happy with the result versus what I paid. I dropped an unprepped frame off at the local Auto Body Shop and got it back 3-4 weeks later painted in my choice of color. $150 for prep and paint.

its been a few years now and the paint has held up much better than a rattle can job but not as well as original paint.

vjp

OMG!

This reminds me of a VERY bad powder coating experience of my own. I was restoring a 1979 TZ 250F road racing motorcycle and a friend suggested having the frame powder coated instead of paint and told me to call the powder coater for Rocky Mountain Bikes. I had the frame bead blasted, put screws in all the threaded bosses and dropped it off with clear, printed instructions on what needed to be masked after they had put the frame in their dip tank.

A day later they called to say that it was finished!! I was so excited that it was done, and so quickly. I went right over to pick it up and it was wrapped and taped in about a foot thick of bubble wrap. "I don't want you to scratch it on the way home" I was told. "I also put a clear on top of the black. No Charge!" WOW, I was so pumped.

It took me about an hour to un-entomb my frame and it was heartbreaking! The powder was SO THICK that there were no sharp edges left anywhere on the frame. All the masking screws I had installed were now one with the frame, you could not tell that they were bolts, screws or a tab. The drips on the frame were up to a 1/2" long and NONE of the areas to be masked were actually masked, including thrust bearing surfaces and the headset races.

I called back the next day only to find out that the "guy" was not an employee but the ex owner of all the equipment who had gone out of biz, sold his gear to RMB and was just setting up the equipment for them. I guess that he thought he would make a little pocket change off of me while he was doing it.

I told my "friend" about it and he said "oh yeah, XXXX is a bit of a boozer...."

Thanks for nothing!!

ColonelJLloyd 

As promised I snapped these with my phone at my LBS last night. The lighting was poor and I was drinking. Bad combo for photos.

It's a Super Course. This was powder coated at the same time (by the same guy) as my wife's P18T. You should look at these pics with the expectation that yours would look better. This is a solid color (sort of heavy) and the coater was a dipsh*t. Neither I or the LBS owner will be using him again.

-holiday76

yeah that's totally doable. It looks acceptable to me, especially since I'm going to have the lugs another color. Thanks - just emailed you mondia pics btw.

dbakl

Looks good to me. Guess I'll try powder coating one... Do they mask the threads?

-holiday76

get a powder coater who has experience with bikes. The guy who did my Bianchi claimed he did but I should have known better when he was clearly a motorcycle guy. I had to file down the sides of the BB shell and head tube because he didnt do a good job taping. I could only imagine what would happen if i asked him to mask off nervex lugs. In fact he'd probably punch my in the face.

ColonelJLloyd 

As I said, this guy was pretty much an idiot and didn't have experience powder coating bikes. My LBS owner spent hours with an awl cleaning BB threads on one bike. Lesson learned. So, like I said, you should expect better results than this "water blue" Super Course.

The guy he and I use now does an excellent taping job. It's the steerer threads and BB that are crucial. He also taped the canti bosses well. For water bottle bosses and dropout eyelets, it wasn't even necessary to leave bolts in there. Bolts went in pretty easily on my copper Voyageur.

Certainly, taping intricate areas like Nervex lugs is going to raise the cost of the job. Rightly so.

southpawboston

the powder coater i used to use didn't do a good job masking off the head tube/BB shell, and i had to reface them myself before building up. i also had to chase all the threaded braze-ons. the guy i'm now using charges twice as much ($200 versus $90), but does a much better job at powder coating and also professionally refaces the head tube/BB shell and chases any threads afterward. he's also a frame builder with his own line of bikes, so he knows about bikes!!!

robtown

Two colors plus clearcoat.

ColonelJLloyd 

Here's some pics of a Paramount on eBay that was powder coated.



Is this a beer can shim on a Paramount? C'mon, guy.

cudak888 

What do you expect from a hipster who puts flat-bars on a Paramount?

-Kurt

illwafer

no disrespect, but barfff to all these powdercoats. i wouldn't powdercoat a huffy.

CMC SanDiego

I also did a SuperCourse and only had issues with the bottom bracket that I thought was too gloppy.
Heres the Headtube

I don't seem to have a copy of the bottom bracket, I'm sure it was omitted because I didn't like how it looked.

ColonelJLloyd 

^That looks nice! Good looking color.