I just got done painting my first bike.
We went the whole nine yards and spent a little over a week to do this.
Sanding, prepping, priming, paint, clear coats. Lots of days to dry. It was fun.

Now I want to paint my other bike flat black.

Any of you have any idea how to do this?

What types of paint/top coats? I'd prefer to use rattle cans, although I do have a compressor and paint gun.

Thanks!

"high heat" rattle can paint in "B-B-Q black" is very flat.. probably any "flat black" rattle can would be fine

i would be interested to know about top coats too because clearcoat would take away the flatness

Flat black is tough. Any slight error shows.

No top coat for flat black.

A lot of the flats are industrial or heavy use. Shoots super thick. Go with the advised directions on specific paint.

To make things easier, or more difficult, could thin the paint and do several light coats.

It depends on your confidence.

Unless you use a matte clearcoat.

Satin finish can be nice too.

I did a couple bmx bikes a while back. One was a matte fluorescent hot pink and the other was a "blood drip" candy apple red that was purposefully chunk sprayed to give a dripping look. Got a ton of compliments on both of them and all I used was Walmart rattles.

Look for automotive paint, there will be some kind of flat black. If you have to use normal 'spraypaint' try to get your hands on montana gold, belton, rustoluem, or krylon. Automotive paint will be your best bet for chipping resistance, and you might be able to get away without clear coating. if you decide to clear coat get a matte finish. NEVER mix flat finish with gloss finish, doing so will cause a crackling effect. unless of course that's what you're going for.

Also - never mix enamel and lacquer. A lacquer clearcoat will often cause enamel paint to sizzle and never fully harden.

With rattlecans, it's also a good idea to let the frame hang out untouched for at least a week before building it back up to allow the paint to cure properly. A general rule of thumb is if you can still smell the paint, it isn't done.

hang it in your attic or someplace hot if you can.. it'll "bake" on the paint as much as possible

Light also plays an important role in how a lot of paints cure too.

I've have good results with 'wrought iron black' for matte paint jobs before.

+1 on the high heat engine bay automotive paint and lots of time to dry, put on 3-4 super light coats, barely covering putting any on w each coat and lots o time to dry.

But then again u have a paint gun, get some automotive paint and do it the right way.

also another thing i do when i paint is i try to get every part wet before the next coat. i know it sounds like common sense but ive seen a lot of people paint only parts at a time and it ends up being uneven. especially with flat colors. with satin ive noticed the more coats you throw on there the more of a semi glossy look you get.

Dupli-Color flat black Engine Enamel is where it's at. Experience has proven it to be notably more durable than stock paint on a couple frames I've owned. Prime, coat, cure, coat, cure, coat cure, etc. Give it a light wet sand with superfine steel wool between coats if you're feeling zealous.

Lets see some pics

Here's pics of the bike when we finished putting the final coats of clear.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/pandita...7626546822941/

I'll take completed ones when I'm done assembling everything.

Also, thanks to everyone for the advice! I'll try looking for some matte finish.

And yeah, I used automotive paint for the red Raleigh! Looks great!

haha bare would've been awesome...

Did you cover the threaded areas when you were painting???

You should probably ask in the Frame Builder's forum.

No... Why?
Before butting the BB in, I used a light wire brush to clean them.

+1

Any updates OP?

Any more "advice?" I really want to paint my bike flat black too.
Can someone reccomend a specific brand of spray paint?

THANKS!

ive used semi-gloss engine enamel (dupli-color) with great results.