A Stupid Idea

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by martearle
I just can't seem to get the desire to perform a DIY respray on my road bike out of my head. I know its a bad idea but it haunts me day and night. Any advice on how to go about a respray on an aluminium frame? How would I get the present paint off, etc?

If you don't give me some good advice. . . the bike gets it!

I'm currently getting my Mountain Bike repainted. Beforehand I talked to a lot of people including custom frame makers and chemical paint remover seems to be the choice. Pretty much everyone said not to sand the old paint off since it could damage the integrity of the thin aluminum walls. I spent a lot of time removing the old paint and tried painting myself and failed miserably. I ended up taking it to the local custom frame maker and getting it done right.

Matt

Thanks.
What kind of chemical paint remover did you use, and what paint? I have been told you can spray paint aluminium.

I did think about taking it to be resprayed proffesionally, but found out it cost £160 ($240)!

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by martearle
Thanks.
What kind of chemical paint remover did you use, and what paint? I have been told you can spray paint aluminium.

I did think about taking it to be resprayed proffesionally, but found out it cost £160 ($240)!

I just used standard paint remover making sure that it worked for aluminum. After you remove the paint you need to use a deglosser or some other chemical cleaner to remove the any residue left from the paint remover. You then need to prime it since they don't recommend using any abrasives on the frame like sandpaper to help the paint adhere. The frame builder told me the only paint I could use from a can would by Krylon. One of the guys at the LBS also used Krylon to camaflouge a MTN bike. You should heavily consider the cost of getting it done though because you must facter in the price of the stripper, deglosser, gloves, rags or towels (you go through a ton of these) primer, paint, scrapers and or brushes to use to scrape or brush the old paint off ect.. You have to consider the cost of all these materials plus your time when you compare to the cost of getting it done. In my case I spent all the money on supplies and a weeks worth of work only to have it not come out right and ended up taking it to the frame builder (who had that I told you so look in his eye). Of course I discovered I'm not a very good painter so if you do it yourself you may have much better luck than I did. I'm getting metalic blue Imron paint, baked (at a low temperature since the aluminum has already been heat treated) to harden the paint, with chrome decals and clear coat applied on top. Hopefully that will help me forget about the time and money I wasted in the beginning. While I'm waiting for my MTN bike to get finished I started building up my first road bike from a frame to keep me occupied and my wallet empty. Let me know what you end up doing and how it works out.

Matt