arex

I'm currently rebuilding a '92 Burley tandem. I currently have things torn down to the frame, and I'm cleaning things up.

The frame's finish appears to be powdercoat, but I don't know how prevalent powdercoating was in the bike world back then. Whatever it is, it seems pretty durable, moreso than most paints are. I don't need to refinish the frame, it's mostly in pretty good shape except for a few minor scratches.

How would I go about identifying the finish, short of testing with solvents?

dedhed

What are you trying to do? clean, refinish, touch up? Does it matter in any of those things?

Ask Burley?
https://www.burley.com/support/contact/

Andrew R Stewart 

Of course the Burley of today has little to do with the Coop of tandem, rainwear and DeLite trailer fame. So don't be surprised if Burley has little to offer. We had a first generation tandem and had it custom colored painted by them before they shipped it out. They stopped that offer soon after. A few years after introducing tandems they redesigned the frame (and into a much better overall result WRT weight and handling). Although I have sold/serviced a few of these I never bothered to question the paint.

One way to tell if a frame might be powdered is the lack of a primer under the color. Another is the lack of clear over decals. Both can be present with a sprayed wet paint though so these are not hard rules. Seems to me that the best way is to let a paint expert have a look/feel of your paint.

Do know that mixing powder and wet paints often doesn't work well. The powder won't let the wet paint take a bite into it and the dry/cured wet paint will tend to lift off/flake in time. I have a powder coated that I've used for quite a few jobs who also will do a basic wet paint job (and for not too much more then powder). I use this offering when I want decals and clear. After the painter does their color/clear top coat I apply decals and my own clear (auto 2 part in a rattle can). Andy

Mad Honk 

There may have been some powder coating going on by the build date. It can be that you have either a baked on paint by a company like PPG. In the mid to late 80's I used a two part epoxy paint by DuPont called Imron. To use it you had to have a schooling on respirator use and be extra careful using a draft system to remove fumes with filtration installed. The worry was that the paint would polymerize in the lungs closing off the transfer of Oxygen to the blood stream. I quit using that about 1988. The stuff was tough as nails! Most who tried to remove it wound up sandblasting, to get a clean finish. I have a Peloton that was repainted with the Imron in 1986, and it was in a house fire in 2003. I saved it in the flame damaged state and last year gave it to my buddy's at Pro Kote Indy. They blast, dip, phosphotize, and then powder coat. The finish is now a very clean cherry red metallic. But my point in this is: that you likely have something like the DuPont Imron or one of the other polymerizing paints that were available in the early 90's. HTH, Smiles, MH