General: painting your frame

My roommate has rattlecanned two bikes. He started by sanding by hand, getting most of the original paint off. Then he went to Autozone and bought a can of primer and two or three cans of paint. Several coats of both with time to dry in between. And then buying a cheap clearcoat to go over it will make it look amazing, especially if you do lots of coats. Rubbing compound will help with imperfections.
Good luck and show us the finished product!

do i have to sand my frame if its stainless steel? theres no paint on my frame. its just raw and to the bone.

dont use regular wallmart spray paint! i have used it in the past with a bad outcome

i just did some research on yelp and this one place charged $75 to sand it down and $90 to powder coat. is that a little pricey?

Powder coating will yield the nicest results but you'd be surprised what you can do with a rattlecan.
Listen to the advice above about how to do it properly, Lykqid and danzap are very on point here.
Also remember to be patient when painting. Don't be in a hurry to get to the next stage because you wanna ride, you'll ruin the paint job.
You're going with a solid black so I'd say try the spray paint route first. Black is hard to fuck up if you do it correctly.
If you end up hating the results you can always get the frame blasted and powdercoated later but if you like the way it looks you've just saved yourself a ton of money.

Posted By: lickedwicked 2for the powder coat,no but dont have them sand it you can do that

They're more than likely going to be sand blasting the frame/fork during the process, which is far different that simply sanding down the frame. Sand blasting has the added benefit of eliminating rust from within the frame and fork as well, since it will blast off anything that it can reach.

I powder coated a frame recently, which came out to right about 120 for a premium coat. If I had gone with a basic coat, the cost would have come out to around 90. The cost of sand blasting the frame was factored into this price.

so ultimately it depends on how much im willing to spend for quality
if i was to do it myself i probably wont do as great of a job as professionaly powdercoating my frame but it costs less

Posted By: TRICKonmyTRACKI guess this question falls into this thread. Anyways i was just wondering if rattle canning your frame is a good idea. Cuz on one hand i hear it decreases your chances of getting it stolen but then it can also look worse. Would you recommend rattle canning or just taking all the stickers off?

Lickedwicked. Finally got it. All makes perfect sense. It's like the scene in Superman II when Lois discovers Clark and Superman are the same dude. Except in this case it'd be like discovering Gallagher and Carrot Top are the same dude.

If you want a really good paint job and you are only doing the one bike, it is probably better to have someone else do it. If you are like me, (and obviously some others in here,) and have many bikes to do over, it is best to learn to do it yourself.

I paint bikes for others as well as restoration projects for myself and others. As retro bikes become more popular, so do the originals and many are willing to go the extra mile to have them completely restored.

I recently completed a mid-70's model Schwinn 10 sp road bike that was made for Sears & Roebucks. I sandblasted the frame, primed and used a dark purple urethane as this was an original for the bike. The toughest part was finding an original seat in good shape. I ended up restoring the one that came on the bike. While riding it downtown on an errand shortly after finishing the project I got into a conversation with a guy who offered me $800.00 on the spot for the bike.

Right now I am looking for decals for a 1994 ParkPre Comp Limited I found at the local dump. The paint is actually in great shape as are the dérailleurs, cassettes, brakes and wheels. I have found decals for about any major brand but I have not found these as yet.

I am also looking for information on an Omega Deluxe MT 18. I have two of these but cannot find any info.

Rick M. ramup2@gmail.com

Posted By: jordanyedo i have to sand my frame if its stainless steel?

now i didn't bother reading this thread, as there are already about eight-bagillion of these threads-- but do you happen to own a submariner or something? if its just stainless just leave it alone.

if i follow the instructions that everyone gave me above will the paint chip if i did a good job? or is that something unavoidable

Don't rattle can your bike unless you really don't care about how it looks. You can do a rattle can paint finish that looks decent but it won't last the way a good quality spray job does & certainly won't look as nice. Powdercoat is also a good option so long as the shop is familiar with powdercoating bicycles. I've seen them turn out like $*#t. If you don't have the tools or the knowledge to paint it right, get a few quotes from some local auto paint shops. If you supply the decals they can apply them under a clearcoat so that the also look nice & stay that way. I designed the decals on my TREDICI(it is rattle cann'd in the photos, for reference. I wanted to do some testing before I put money into real paint). The decalls can be easily designed in programs like Illustrator & printed at a shop for about $30.

If anyone needs artwork done I can do it..... here's some samples

http://www.facebook.com/danzap209?ref=name

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?

Still can't see it. Log out to try it yourself.

But I recommend powder coating. Spray painting is very time consuming and doesn't actually save you much money. You're talking multiple afternoons of work, plus multiple cans of paint and sundry materials. It can save you $25 to $50, but for a far inferior finish.

rattlecan is the way to go, It will save you alot of money and it is pretty easy to do. just sand down the frame and go to a hardware store and get some paint. I painted my bike this way for about $20.