hey guys, whats the best way to get a little surface rust off my bike so i don't damage the frame? I also want a new paint job, but not powdercoat. What kind of paint is used and do you guys know of any shops in southern california that does it. thanks

You can sand the rust off...you are going to have to sand the frame anyway when you paint it.

I would strip the paint with air craft paint remover. If the rust is just light surface rust then i would use POR 15, or rustproof or something similar.

Then use montanas or rustomeum with lots of automotive clear. Depends if you want a nice and bright color

If you don't want the frame to chip, don't rattlecan it.

fail. paint chips. not frames.

Sorry, paint chips. But it's still very difficult to do a rattlecan job that won't chip.

if you do it rght youll be ok. primer is the Key

What's wrong with paint chips? I think they add character.

If you spend the 7 to 10 hours that a good spray job takes, wouldn't you feel bad when it starts to chip away?

Not even a little bit.

I can respect that, but I definitely don't want my hard work chipping away.

your hard work will never chip away.




rattlecanning works great, as long as you apply thin, even coats. of course paint doesn't last as long as powdercoat. just use decent quality paint, make sure you prime it (can't hurt to use a primer specifically indicated for use on metal), and apply a clear coat or two after the color.
if you're ambitious, you can sand it between coats.
if you're really ambitious, you can wet-sand it between coats.

I've done all of that on several well-prepped frames and they all have chipped, mostly from locking up to objects. My road bike chipped on the rear left stay mainly from my poor technique, but a frame powdercoated or painted by an auto shop wouldn't have.

I'm in the middle of this same process and also live in So Cal. Just for fun (it wasn't that fun) I tried several different ways to remove the rust. Some of my parts were pitted, some was just surface rust. I tried wood bleach (oxalic acid). Works really well, but it's messy. Very easy to use - doesn't require any scrubbing/sanding and it's cheap. I also tried a wire wheel on my drill. This worked great. A lot more work, but a lot cleaner. The last thing I tried was steel wool. It works great on surface rust, but won't work get the pitted stuff.

As for painting, you can find 1,000 threads on here about that. This thread is a very good one if you want to rattle can your bike, but it's not as durable as an auto finish. I'm doing a rattle can job right now. There is a guy on here (Dr Deltron) that paints bikes using auto paints and has 100s of posts with great info about how to do that kind of paint job if you have a sprayer and a place to do it. Search his name and you'll find stuff. The other option is to send it to Dr Deltron or one of the paint shops around town. I live in San Diego and found several shops that would paint my bike near where I live (Escondido).

Hope this helped.