tastewar

Howdy folks-

I'm in the process of re-imagining my old Pana DX-2000 as a SS/Fixie. I've been searching around for a place to have the frame re-finished. I've stripped the finish coat(s), but the primer is still there and seems tougher to remove. When I stripped the fork, however, I found that it was entirely chrome plated, and not just the tips. So I'm inclined to leave the fork as-is. Anyway, in my searching/browsing, I've come across the following:

S&D Powdercoating of S. Attleboro (https://mysite.verizon.net/vzerk3tc/index.html)
Fine Finish Shop of Lynn (https://www.finefinishshop.com/)
Long Beach Custom Fabrications (https://www.lbcustomfab.com/)
Sugarcoat Boston (https://www.sugarcoatboston.com/index.html)

Of these, Sugarcoat is the closest and obviously they specialize in bikes. But they are pretty expensive -- blasting and coating my frame would be $225. Long Beach seems like it would be $96 +extra for "red" or "custom" colors. FFS claims $110 + up to $50 for non-common colors. S&D, whose prices I've seen quoted here at $80, but nothing recent. I've emailed twice and tried calling once (no answer).

1. Does anyone know if S&D is still in business??
2. Anyone have any experience with any of the other places I've mentioned?
3. Anyone know of any other places to get a bike frame prepped & coated at a reasonable price.

Thanks for any leads!

tastewar

Bump.

Anyone? I won't bother y'all again about this, just wanted to have a second chance...

thehum

hey, I'm pretty sure geekhouse bikes, a custom framebuilder in allston does custom powedercoating. give 'em a call.

If not, I'd ask around on the www.bostonfixed.us forum

edit:I just realized sugarcoat boston=geekhouse.

Anywho, I've been to the geekhouse shop, met Marty, owner of both, and he's very friendly.

tastewar

Thanks, thehum, for responding. Yes, you are right about geekhouse==sugarcoat, and I have every confidence they'd do a great job, as that's what they do -- powdercoat bike frames. But $225 is a lot to spend on a bike that probably cost me $300 back when I bought it. I'd be willing to travel down to Attleboro for S&D, but can't get any response from them! Too bad; from this & other forums, sounded like a nice guy who did good work at a reasonable price.

I'll take a look at bostonfixed -- thanks for the clue.

bhurin

Hey man, I'm looking for a powdercoat job around Boston as well. Let me know what you end up going with and I'll do some poking around and see if there are any other places that can do it for cheaper. I've got an old Fuji Supreme that I want to make nice. Thanks!

atom bomb

Here's a place in WAREHAM:

https://www.prismpowderusa.com/about_us.htm

Like S&D.... don't know if they are still in business.

tastewar

Hah! I've done nothing on this since last year (sigh...) Was just searching the forum to see if there were any more threads or posts about powder coating, but mine seems to be the most recent. Coincidentally, it's exactly a year old.

Just a brief "bump" then to see if anyone has any recent experience. Thanks for looking!

pocky

I've always wanted to "do it myself," but I've never done it. Suzy Jackson has an excellent tutorial on painting with DuPont Imron.
It ain't powder coating, but it's supposed to be plenty durable. Joe Bell uses it...

A compressor and the necessary consumables would likely be more expensive than a powder coat to start with, but if you split the costs with other like-minded people, you (we?) could do a whole ton of frames this way.
Hum, Galen, etc., I'm lookin' at you -- I wonder if this is something Common Wheels would be interested in?

tastewar

There are a lot of things I do myself, but I'd rather get this bit done professionally, in spite of the fact that I already have a compressor :-)

tastewar

OK, so just to follow up on this, I ended up getting two frames done at Central Mass Powder Coating. They were very nice to work with, and did great work. In addition to the stripping and coating, they were able to remove the cable stops from the Panasonic frame that I no longer need. Only thing was the price -- after getting a phone estimate of $300 for 3 bikes (100 each), when I dropped off 2 bikes I was quoted $200, but I was then told later that they came to $400 (i.e. $200 ea)! We came to an agreement on $300 for the two, which was more than I had intended to spend on these projects, but they came out looking quite nice.


Untitled by tastewar, on Flickr


Untitled by tastewar, on Flickr