Swirl paint a bikcycle frame.
 

Just curious if anyone has tried this on a frame or fork.It seems pretty cool,but also looks like it could get out of hand.

I guess all I would like to know is if there are any drawbacks doing it to a frame or anything that would be problematic.

If I remember correctly,Cannondale did something similar to a F700 frame and made it look like it was made of wood.

Should I try,or will it be a bad idea?

That'll look pretty kickass in my book.

Definitely has potential to look awesome

I used to have a frame that was splatter painted. It was awesome until it got hit by a car.

Yeah,Im thinking...

CON:Bike will look like 80s hair band....

PRO:Bike will look like 80s hair band.

It's usually called a marbled finish. I've done a couple guitars and other things. The technique is pretty simple: you fill a big tub with water (kiddie pool suggests itself), toss some dilute oil-based paint in and let it spread out on the surface. If you use two or three colors of paint, it's helpful to use paints that won't mix with one another. Swirl them around until you have a pattern you like, then dip the primed item in. When it comes out, it's painted.

The problem with a round item, like a bike frame tube, is that the frame has to go all the way into the water --below the surface-- to get painted on all sides, and then is likely to get painted a second time when you take it out again. And it will be wet.

Could you run a paper towel or something over the surface of the water to absorb the extra paint before lifting the frame back out of the water?

I'm pretty sure you could. There's any number of things you could do, scraping all the paint over to one edge of the pool and pouring it off, etc. A drop of liquid soap in the center of the pool will drive all the surface paint to the edge, but might interfere with the paint already on the item painted. And so on. It's probably an easy problem to solve with a little experimentation.

Try it, it's a heck of a lot of fun. Practice on disposable items before you do a bike! Take notes on what kind of paints and thinners you used. You'll figure it out pretty quick, I promise!

^^Thanks for the tips. I'm really interested in trying this with my bike sometime over the winter. Just need to pick the right colors.

Make sure you post pics when done. I think it sounds like it'd look cool.

No, do not pick the right colors! That will tempt you to do a bike, which would be bad, because your first attempts will not come out as well as later ones. Look on the shelf in the basement and see what open cans of rustoleum etc have been kicking around since the Bush administration. Preferably different kinds of paint, like a metallic aluminum plus a gloss blue enamel plus a flat black enamel, so they don't mix readily. If you don't have any, your neighbors do. Fool around with disposable stuff before buying anything.

so anything oil based will work?

That is exactly the question to ask. Yes, basically, what "works" is anything that floats on top of the water and sticks to what you dip in it. But some things, and in particular some combinations, will work better than others. I don't follow instructions well, and when I go to the store to buy exactly the right thing, they invariably have something slightly different anyway. So when I do a project like this, I'm going to be winging it. That's what i suggest you do as well.

By the way, you're going to have to thin the paints to a watery consistency. There are a lot of thinners, with labels like Mineral Spirits, Paint Thinner, Lacquer thinner, Turpentine, "Turpatine", Naphtha, denatured alcohol, and so on. Some will work, some will not work. Among those that work, some will work better than others. You can also use drying oils like linseed oil to thin some paints. Experiment.

A good experiment might be to spray a lot of empty beer bottles with a light colored primer, marble them, and clearcoat them.

Yep! You can do it with fingernails and as you can see in this vid, she twirls a toothpick to wrap up the extra paint before removing her finger from the water:

This guy does it with car parts and just shakes the part back and forth to push the extra paint to the edges before pulling the piece out:

I've been thinking about this for quite some time since my frame is due for painting.
Would love to se if anyone has done it and get some feedback and tips.

The paint job on my land shark seems to be of this swirl style.
http://www.pedalroom.com/p/land-shar...-01-9336_9.jpg