Repaint a frame
 

Anyone know about painting your own frame? I'm building a bike and found a sweet deal but it's pink and I race tri's not the Giro so that's not an ideal option. If I spray paint my own will that look like crap? Or will that be plenty cool?

Pink's freaking sweet. Keep it pink.

Thought about it... Being a dude on a pink bike would be unique. But I'm not sure I'm fast enough to be that bold.

Be bold. Who cares if you're "fast enough". If you like the bike, that's all that matters.

Added bonus: it should be easier to spot your bike in the transition area.

Do you have painting experience, or do you mean just the basic rattle can? A professional paint job can be expensive if you want it to look really good. Have you considered powder coating it?

I don't have paint experience I was looking more for a cheap DIY type job. Don't know much about powder coating it. This will be my first bike build.

Do you have a picture of the bike?

I know prices will be different state-to-state and shop-to-shop but I was quoted $100 by a local shop to PC my frame and fork. The price included stripping/blasting. I got a cheaper quote from another guy, but he told me he had limited experience working with bike frames so I passed.

I repaint bikes quite a bit. Get a quart can of Benjamin Moore Advance Gloss in whatever color you like. Use a 3/4" flat art brush, 2.99 special at Michaels craft store. Scuff up the paint on the frame with some fine sandpaper. Wipe it down with mineral spirits or whatever solvent you have on hand. Then go at it with the brush. I hang my frames by the rear dropouts from the ceiling in the basement. Takes about an hour to do one coat. 2 or more coats is good, drying overnight between coats.
A little rubbing compound and a coat of wax when all is dry and you're good to go.

+1

Embrace the pink.

My feeling is that if you have to ask about painting on a forum like this, you don't have the knowledge/skills to make it look good (at least for any appreciable amount of time). For a purely race frame, that's not necessarily a bad thing. Racing bikes are tools, and you can expect them to get scratched and scraped along the way. Now if you were talking about your classic Italian steel, lugged Mas-nag-ello, then you 'd definitely be better off paying someone who knows what they're doing.

You can take off old paint easily with a chemical paint stripper. Then on a bare steel frame I'd use a two-part epoxy primer, one $25 can from a speciality automotive paint store is enough and the primer color is light yellow. After that dries you can use a rattle can of pseudo 'epoxy' appliance paint, for example in glossy silver, black, white, or off-white. This appliance paint wouldn't work too well on bare steel but the real epoxy primer under it is rust-protective and very scratch resistant, so the top coat sticks good to it. This process is cheap and fast and you'll end up with frame that looks brand new. Alternately, you could buy another two part epoxy can from the speciality auto paints store and have them mix it to whatever color you like for the top coat. These two-part epoxy rattle-cans are the bees knees for fast durable paint. You pop a divider on the can for the two parts to mix while shaking. They have limited time span for use after being mixed of a few minutes, or maybe a half hour, it's been awhile since I used one. If you live out in the country it might be possible to mail order these cans. There should be no pink bikes in the world.

I have pink bar tape with pink SRAM hoods because they were on sale ($10 total). Pink, like white, does get dirty and shows all the smudge marks from your dirty hands.

There are some good vids on youtube about painting with rattle cans and getting really good results. I've painted a few fames that way and have been pretty pleased.

Some ideas here http://www.bikeforums.net/classic-vi...n-success.html

Can you have it dipped ??

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHqGY20Hqd4

Unless it's a cheap bike or already in rough shape (i.e. no resale value) I wouldn't paint it. Painting usually kills the value if you ever do want to repaint. And like others said, pink is good. I'd much rather ride pink than matte black like every other bike these days

It's gonna look look like crap. Best best for inexpensive repaint is powder coating. Probably between $100 and $200. Good looking and durable. Likely not suitable for carbon due to the oven baking step.

I just may keep the pink. But I might look into a one color rattle can scheme, that can't be too hard. I'd rather pink than crap.

keep in mind that if you are going to paint you need to completely break down the bike first. Remove all components, cables, chain, headset/bottom bracket/bearings etc. Then rebuild the bike after painting. If you have a lot of building experience it's not a big deal but if not it could be a PITA

It's a bear frame breaking down is not the issue. Ok long story short. Took a concrete slide on my bmc, braze on front derailuer hanger snapped off a month later, no one will touch aluminum. So I'm putting my exsisting and perfectly fine 105 gruppo on a new frame. Was going dengfu but there's a Planet X frame for about $91 less. Looking to maybe Repaint the Planet X pink, keep it pink, or stay original plan and rock nude Carbon with decals.

It should be easy to do. :)

http://www.bikeforums.net/attachment...4&d=1426778133

http://www.bikeforums.net/classic-vi...body-know.html

You can even transform an old Schwinn into any brand of bike you wish :thumb:

Paint drips seem to be a problem with rattle can work, but you can usually avoid them with taking it slow and easy.

I've seen a few people advertising bicycle powder coating for about $50 on Craigslist.

Exactly. I posted this earlier in the thread. Inexpensive, durable, and looks really good. Any shop will have white powder on hand.

I would see if you can find some local sand blasters (or media blasters). You could get the frame stripped bare pretty cheap and then use epoxy primer as said above. From there if I were exploring rattle cans, I'd be looking at satin colors and probably black. With a satin finish you don't have to worry so much about how even you're laying down the finish. Otherwise if the frame is worthy I'd want to have it powder coated for best results.

Bike isn't going to be much of a deal if you put $150 into a paint job.

Doesn't your money usually prefer to make simple purchase choices? You know, such as the choice to buy a FREAK'N FRAME THAT YOU LIKE?