advice on spraying stripping and spraying alu frames.

wheres the mountains

have a frame

wana experiment with a custom sprayjob.

anyone atempt this b4? worth getting it sandblasted prof 1st?
advice?

The Northern Monkey

that bike looks good as it is!!
I wouldn't mess tbh, custom jobs don't really look great... there are places that will do it properly for you though..

edit: just realised you sait "another frame" lol. thought you were on about your focus!!

nicklouse

have a look in the tech links sticky.

The Rookie

Looking, can't find one!

Advice I have had from someone who has done it is to strip with nitromors stripper, make sure you use an etch primer (not the normal halfords 'rattle can' type) on ally frames, get it from a paint supermarket and spray hanging up so you can rotate it as you go. I'm just about to strip/spray my Kraken - still tossing up colours but Rover NIghtfire red is my current thought!

I did spray an old steel frame (Raleigh Hustler) years back, just sanded back and then primed and painted, I did it in metallic blue (Laquer top coat) and it worked really well, My sister used it for 2 years, then I had it when I went to Uni for 3 years and then sold it to a friend who used it for 3 years before selling it on, still looked good even then, much more durable than the original paintwork!

Simon

Turrican

Get it done place where they do car body workshop / resprayers as im having my DH bike frame redone but want it done good i got quoted 50 / 60 quid for it done take every thing off. Yes can do it urself but unless know what doing with it and are fully confident then cool do it but its not expensive and worth having it done properly.
Google paint sprayer in your local area and ring up for a quote.
Hope helps

PS I have done my own job but was ok, car body work shops have good spray equipments to do the job not just a psray can .

dave_hill

If you're going to have the frame shotblasted, make sure that whoever does it uses glass bead shot rather than iron grit. Most industrial shot-blasters will be geared up to do this. Iron grit is way too harsh bike frames and will rip one to bits. It's fine for aluminium castings like engine blocks and so on but no good for fabrications. Look up "sandblasting" or "blast cleaning" on yell.com.

Stripping a frame yourself with nitromors is a nasty, difficult and labour-intensive process - I should know, I've done enough in my time! Again, you may be able to find companies who do chemical stripping, but this process often uses caustic solutions so isn't always suitable for aluminium.

As far as the repainting is concerned, your best bet is to use a shop which specialises in small jobs like car or motorcycle customisation. Big body shops tend to be fairly impersonal and staffed by trained baboons who might be able to weild a paint gun but very often won't listen to what you want. Custom paint shops are more likely to listen to you, offer advice and be able to interpret your needs properly.

Finally, if you do have someone else do the painting, make sure that they mask off the inside of the headtube and also the BB shell or else the threads will need chasing out once they've finished.

trekhead

Hi
as the owner of a body shop, I can recommend using a small business rather than a big body shop, where you`ll just be another punter. At a small place you`ll be able to have much more input. Personally I would let you into the spray booth while your bike was being painted, don`t tell the health and safety gestapo though!
As far as the frame goes, does it need blasting. Unless it`s really `rusty` don`t blast it. Your best to leave as much of the original paint and primers on as possible. Nothing will be as good as the original etch primer and nothing sticks to paint as well as paint - so long as it`s `prepped` right.
regards

sean

Northwind

dave_hill wrote:

IAs far as the repainting is concerned, your best bet is to use a shop which specialises in small jobs like car or motorcycle customisation. Big body shops tend to be fairly impersonal and staffed by trained baboons who might be able to weild a paint gun but very often won't listen to what you want. Custom paint shops are more likely to listen to you, offer advice and be able to interpret your needs properly.

On the other hand, some custom shops have a rep for "reinterpretation". Quote Dream Machine after they sprated a mate's motorbike, "Once we started spraying it was obvious that purple would look better than that blue you wanted. And we added some chequered flags to give it more contrast. It'll only be £100 extra, oh and we'd already ordered the blue so you'll need to pay for that too."

What sort of paint job are you after? Powdercoat might make more sense if it's a straightforward colour scheme.

rolf_f

The Beginner wrote:

Looking, can't find one!

Really not that hard to find - look in here http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtop ... t=12534925

The Rookie

Aargh, no wonder I looked in the stickys as I you said!

Simon