PedalingWalrus

What is the best way to stripbpaint off your bike?

homemade

commercial

SkinGriz

Paint or powder coat?

delbiker1 

If you are talking about actual paint, not powder coating, the quickest, easiest, non-damaging way is with chemical stripper such as Kwik Strip, EZ Strip and others. Usually have to apply at least twice and let it sit in a plastic bag in a warm but ventilated area for overnight. Scrape off what you can after each application and then use sanding paper. I usually start out with 100 grit and end with 800 grit wet sand. Once that is done to my satisfaction, I wash the bike off really well with just soap and water and let it dry completely. Final prep just before painting is wiping the whole thing down with denatured alcohol. Some finishes are fairly easy to completely remove, others take more work.

zandoval 

I have used Klean-Strip on a few bikes. Works pretty well and was able to use a pressure sprayer to remove it. I did follow the stripped paint job by painting on a coat of with Oxalic Acid and then pressure spraying again. Mostly because I waited to long after the stripping and ended up with a light coat of rust on the bike. I was living in Galveston at the time.

PedalingWalrus

I have a titanium frame where the toptube and fork get a beating no matter what I do. I thought I would wrap the bottom part (it has a nice design) and strip the top ‘au naturel’ and be done with it

zandoval 

On my Simi Gravel Bike I have a hard time with dings to the front of the down tube, inner side of the chain stay, and the inner sides of the forks. My solution was to use Helicopter tape on those specific areas. I had a roll left over from Army days. It's a little costly now days. You can also use clear Butyl tape or two part refrigerator tape. I have not tried Clear Gorilla tape yet.

PedalingWalrus

Yeah. With helicopter tape, I have had my own nightmare scenario one day before bike touring vacation...

I thought I would refresh the tape and proceeded to peel it off from the top tube... and it peeled off ... along with the paint. I was shocked...perhaps I should have used a hot hair dryer ... I dunno but the truth is that this incident made me decide to just strip the paint ... it is titanium after all and it will look good too

delbiker1 

I stripped a frame this afternoon. I finished spray can painting it yesterday, and it did not come out very well. I used Kwikstrip, put it on heavy and let the frame hang in the hot sun, 86 degrees, for a couple of hours. Paint started to liquefy almost immediately. Most of the paint came off with an easy scraping. I may not have to use the stripper again, just go to steel wool and then lightly sand it again. I am sure the paint had not had enough time to totally harden.

tendency

Or, for a non-toxic method, and, if you have the time you can painstakingly hand sand the entire frame. I've done it before. Not sure I recommend it

PedalingWalrus

Haha. I have done it too, probably 50 years ago. Growing up poor and begging for a bike my uncle woke me up one day saying I got a bike for you…but first you have to sand it and paint it…
don’t ask don’t tell

Geepig

Can I have my bike back, please!

PedalingWalrus

heh. yeah. I've been wondering once in a while. I think what happened was my uncle got drunk at the pub, spoke to some 'friends' and bought a bike from them but when he woke up and saw the bike on the balcony he probably was not sure whether it was stolen or what...

At any rate I was just a kid. the bike was so big for me at first I was pedaling it while my torso was inside of the triangle :-) then I rode it by not sitting down on the saddle and probably after several months or maybe next season I was able to sit on it

HillRider

For steel or titanium frames pretty much any commercial paint stripper will do. For aluminum frames, be very careful not to use a caustic (aka lye or sodium hydroxide) based stripper as it will attack the aluminum too. For a carbon frame, you are on your own unless the stripper specifically says it's safe for composites.

BTW, I never understood painting a Ti frame. Years ago Litespeed offered painted frames as an expensive upcharge that added weight. Why?

joejack951

I used a wire wheel on a hand drill to remove most of the paint from a hand-me-down frame for a bike I built for my son. I used a little bit of paint stripper and sand paper in a few tough spots.

Andrew R Stewart 

The challenge here is to have an edge between the surface to be stripped and the next door surface to be left painted. This is a hard thing as boarders when working with stripper, sand paper and scrapers are hard to maintain. The chance of marring the "to be left as is painted" is great. I would not take this on and would suggest either stripping all and then repainting what you want (producing edges with wet paint is VASTLY easier then removing up to an edge) or repainting all. Andy

Chuckles1

I once taped off all but the painted steel frame of a Raleigh, suspended it from a branch of an old apple tree with nylon rope at seat and stem, and sandblasted it with a cheapo sandblaster and abrasive. It worked well, left no sanding irregularities, and was especially good at welds that would be difficult to sand. It was quick and easy once the taping was done. Wipe with tack cloth and prime before the shiny steel can corrode. Apple tree not required.

easyupbug 

I had a fork to do and thought it easy so rather than search out more Rustoeum Aircraft Remover (great stripper for enamel) I grabbed Citristrip Paint and Varnish Stripping Paste Non-NMP. All I can say is they should have left the NMP, in as clearly it was what had work in the past when I used Citristip

zandoval 

My Dad had a Schwinn Bomber bike from the 40's that he brought home after it was retired from Point Mugu Naval Base. We decided to strip it and paint it. Several weeks latter we gave up. We just could not get all the paint off of it. He took it back to the Base and a guy at the paint shop shot it with Navy Grey Wrinkle paint. Man it was beautiful.

Rode that thing till 1964 when I traded it for a Three Speed Western Flyer!!!

capnjonny 

Try scraping the paint off. I just did this on an old Windsor frame. I used one of those knifes you find at the check out counter of the hardware store with the blade that slides out of the handle and has places you can break the blade off to get a sharp end. Some bikes have very thick hard paint but with the Windsor I was able to get 80 percent of the paint off with the blade in a couple hours. Then I used a palm sander with 80 grit paper to get most of the rest off. The only place this doesn't work is the lugs. There you might have to use stripper and a scotch brite pad. I have a small home sand blaster that I use on the lugs.

J.Higgins 

I would never paint over a Ti frame myself, nor would I ever order a painted Ti frame. That said, I do get why someone would think that all Ti frames look the same and are somewhat boring, and that there is nothing like a little paint to spice things up a bit. Personally, I love how a raw Ti frame looks.