Rolla

I'm aware of his location. Powdercoating is done worldwide.

mawn

Yes, but there are a lot of bad ones (plz read Andy's answer). I prefer to do the bad work myself

Thank you Andy, checking with motorcycle shops is a great idea.
Here, motorcycles are very popular; bikes are not that important.

mawn

sorry, the picture is not showing the true colors.. but there are different shades of blue

smd4

My point is, blue and black will still look good, if you don't like blue and white.

SurferRosa

You have no idea the work and cost involved in painting a frameset. Personally, I never want to do it again.

If you don't like white, why not change the bar tape? also, try to get into the habit of taking pics of the drive-side.

55tele

I agree with AndrewRStewart....To get a professional job, painting tubes requires experience with viscosity adjustment, spray pattern, volume and pressure and the right support or racking. I worked for PPG for 32 years.....And I watched while my Serotta Colorado II got its factory paint job when it was produced back in 1992....Even with my experience, I wouldn't try to paint a bike or anything with tubes!!

Motorcycle shops are an option, but they are usually more concerned with the "tins" than the frame.

I would also think twice about powder coating a frame. Powder is a thick dry film and if not experienced, a powder shop can put too thick a film on dropouts, head tubes and bottom brackets that need facing, etc.

BTW, my Serotta was painted with PPG Concept Acrylic Urethane with Deltron Clear.....The clear has a fine metallic in it and went over the decals......beautiful....I still have the bicycle and it still looks almost factory new....I have one area where the front brake caliper mounts to the fork where the film build was a little high and it chipped around the bolt....I touched it up and you can't see it unless really looking for it.....
I spoke with David Kirk earlier in the year and he remembered painting it....

sweeks

Nice rendering of a Strida!

One thing that no one's mentioned so far is that you will lose the brand markings, which might affect the resale value (and any possible brand-owner bragging rights). OTOH, there might be "RIDLEY" decals available from the manufacturer or some place like THIS.

smd4

The effect on resale value was brought up in the second post. Later I suggested that probably wouldn’t be an issue for this particular bike.

zandoval 

Try to remember that the paint is there to protect the frame...

squirtdad

MY opinion is no, not "worth it" in terms of that the result at the end of a lot of work will not be as nice as the factory paint and will not be as durable unless you use automotive paint, so even if it looks ok it will not for long

ride the bike and have fun, and when you get a "better" bke get the color you want

to paint it properly you would need to

take all the parts off,

sand all of the frame lightly to ensure adhesion of new paint

put a coat of primer on

sand primer lightly

2 to 3 light coats of color with careful attention to dry and respray times (hope for not drips etc(

2 coasts of clear

have a good protective mask on the entire time

sweeks

Yes, I saw that... just thought the decals/markings might be another little wrinkle in the decision process.

Kai Winters

Don't forget about wet sanding between all steps to keep the surface smooth...this includes the clear coats.

Honestly if you don't know what your doing...leave it to a pro who has the tools, knowledge and experience to do it correctly.
Dishonestly...go for it...rattle cans away...it's not my bike so I have no monkeys in this circus...

Vintage Schwinn

for going the Do-It-Yourself, lowest cost route, SEE:
https://www.rustoleum.com/product-ca...a-cover/gloss/

https://thecabe.com/forum/threads/ar...ainting.86132/

https://thecabe.com/forum/threads/tr...ixture.125760/

https://thecabe.com/forum/threads/ra...ainting.97082/

https://thecabe.com/forum/threads/fr...ng-tips.83075/

******Check out the "CABERS", many of whom are magicians in doing fantastic paint work with ordinary off the shelf paints. Obviously, those folks are skilled through experience, true artists at what they do because they love doing it, and they do it all the time, so they have perfected the art of the highest DIY craftsmanship.
I am always amazed at what some of them can do.
No joke, I know a fellow that uses regular Rustoleum oil based enamel out of a paint can (liquid..not the rattle spray can) and I think he cuts it with about 30% mineral spirits and then he rolls it on with a roller in multiple coats and hand sands with something like 600+ grit between the coats. His finished product looks fantastic. He also "bakes" the frames in a home-made small solar oven in his backyard during the summer. (Basically his solar oven is similar in principal to a parked car with all the windows rolled up in the midday sunshine in June-Jul-Aug when normal daily afternoon temps range from between 90F and 98F, thus the interior of his solar oven, likely reaches at least 150F. He claims that that makes the regular ordinary Rustoleum oil based enamel, as durable as any lacquer enamel finish. I have no opinion about that as I don't know enough on the subject and I do not have the wizard like DIY paint skills that many of the "CABERS" seem to have. Don't trust my 30% and 600 grit descriptions because I'm just going on memory of what he said but those figures might be way off, so do your own research and confirm everything by communicating directly with those c.a.b.e members(CABERS) that show detailed photographs in some of those threads you may see over there on the c.a.b.e.
Ask them questions, directly so you get quality information from an experienced reliable source. Sure, its cool to see the details & instructions posted on the net or within a blog or on a thread somewhere, but if and when you have the opportunity to ask "Picasso" or "Einstein" a direct question about some details that might help you, ----you definitely should ask them directly. The worst case scenario is probably that they might be grumpy, or slow in responding but I doubt that will be the case unless you are extremely rude or are overly critical of their method(s) or skills.
....................VISIT:
https://thecabe.com/forum/


......on the flip side of the coin.... HERE is a very detailed discussion on doing a proper show quality finish on a steel frame: (..it will not be inexpensive....material costs..)
https://thecabe.com/forum/threads/ho...-finish.87859/


I did not mean to imply that bikeforums members don't have the repaint skills that the cabers do.
No, that is certainly not what I meant to say because in fact many BF folks are superbly skilled in repainting and yes there are several great past BF threads worth searching out and reviewing very carefully. I simply emphasized the CABERS (thecabe DOT COM) because all of their bicycles are really old, so that it is more likely for many of them to require repaints. Some of those very ancient bicycles also had some very complex two tone and multi-color paint schemes from the factory.
I just thought that you might want to check out over there because some of those folks do paintwork all the time, essentially because they have to because in order to have a nice looking ride with a bicycle that is 70 years old, one likely has to either be extremely lucky in finding a pristine near perfect example or they have to repaint and restore the 70 year old bike that they have to work with.
Best of luck with your DIY paint job. Let your creativity and imagination be your guide. Choose what you like the best and basically try to do the color scheme as if you were the president-ceo of the bicycle manufacturing company..... Its your bike. Do it your way to a reasonably half-way decent end result and it will look fantastic to everyone else who sees it while you are riding it, even if the paintwork has minor defects when sighted with an eyeball looking up close at it from three inches away.

79pmooney

Do you have a brand name for the 2-part paint? Would it work on plastic fenders? (SKS)

I have wanted good plastic road fenders in bright yellow or tending slightly to wheatstraw or a tiny bit to orange for a red custom. (My goal when I chose the color upon ordering the bike.) Yellow simply because I live where winter riding typically happens under a flat grey sky. Black fenders are, well, black and silvery grey looks just like the clouds. Chrome fenders reflect the clouds. But in January north of the 45th parallel, there is nothing in nature that is bright yellow.

Yes, I know yellow plastic fenders are out there but an expensive custom road bike shouldn't be saddled with hybrid with fenders (and I simple refuse to go there). Now, finding good paint that I can apply has been a challenge. I tried a spray can paint that was supposed to be good on flexible objects but my lack of great spray can technique meant the job looked amateur and it started flaking early on. By contrast, I've brush painted a couple of bikes with 2-part epoxies that have some out very well. If I could find the same paint in the right yellow, I'd be painting right now. (I guess I should be firing up my time machine and read the labels and receipts of those paints I bought 40+ years ago.)

greatscott

If you are good at spray painting, you could do it yourself, the cost of materials will be around $120; if you have a pro do it could cost around $500 unless you want something fancy done then it could cost upwards of $2,000. All these prices are rough guesses, and I'm not sure how much damage inflation has done to the prices I'm guessing at, I tried to factor in inflation, but I could still be short. Since I'm not in the profession I don't have a clue other than what I've read on the internet. But repainting a bike could easily exceed the used value of the bike, you have to decide if you want it repainted because you really like the bike and are not intending to sell it, and the money thing is not too big of a deal.

You could try contacting some community colleges, or career center schools, and see if they have an auto body shop class, a student might be willing to paint the frame at very little cost, just material, and if done in the shop at the school they can't charge you for the labor, though a donation might be helpful, if not, a pizza and soda pop lunch for the class. Another idea, is some pro body shops have workers that paint cars on the side, they might do it for half the cost of the usual labor rate.

HelpSingularity 

For the love of god, NO. I have in the past and have regretted it every time. Unless you're going to sink 1 to 2 thousand dollars into a professional paint job with decals I can guarantee you will regret it. Your bike looks wonderful as is.
But at the end of the day it's your money and your decision.

noobinsf 

There is a lot of advice about painting bikes on these forums if you search for it. I think if you have the space and the patience, it can be fulfilling if you're genuinely curious about creating a nice finish on your bike. However, if you're looking for a cheap and easy way to change the color on your bike because it doesn't really meet your preference, you're in for a lot of disappointment. It takes a lot of work to do it properly (and it isn't necessarily cheap), and even then, you will not likely have a durable protective finish like the one your bike has now.

I did want to go through the process and I lucked upon a special steel frame with a lot of rust, so it really needed a repaint to protect it from rotting further. In the end, it looks ok, but it took a very long time for me (spare time comes in bits and pieces), and it already has several scratches. I'm glad I did it this one time, but I would not do it again.

brixxton

I picked up a similair bike, a GMC DENALI, for $50 off of CraigsList. I didn't like the colour scheme which looked like it had been puked on.
Over a beautiful weekend I sat on my front stoop with some Aircraft stripper, brushes, varying grits of emery paper, tools and good tunes. I took pictures of everything as I broke it down so I wouldn't forget how to re-assemble it.
Not rushing it and not breathing in the vapors I let the stripper do it's work . The paint fell off and I ended up with a beautiful mirror like aluminium frame. On Monday morning a had an awesome looking machine. To the untrained eye it looked as though it could be a high end titanium ride. It seemed like every other person commented on it.
Tuesday morning I locked it up downstairs in the Berkeley BART station.
Tuesday evening I returned to a chopped U-Lock and nothing else.
At least the MF'ers took my POS and left some much nicer machines behind, looking on the bright side. I had fun, gained some experience and had no fear I could do it again. I got an old Mongoose MTB and used it to get some chops around the Rustoleum rattle cans. I even experimented with very expensive Marine Varnish. Aluminium is easy...........................Now steel is another story completely but once your in the zone.
I guess what I'm saying is don't be afraid to try and WEAR A MASK!!!!

Trakhak

I'd wrap the bars with black tape and buy an all-black saddle and then live with the bike for a while before committing to painting it. You may find that you come to like the color eventually.

Manufacturers are beginning to move away from the all-black fad that was dominant for the last 5 years. Your bike may look cutting-edge in the coming years.

In any event, repainting a bike that's in showroom condition is the fastest way to guarantee that its value will instantly plummet.

RB1-luvr

I'm fairly good with rattle cans, and I did a quicky mask everything, spray what I didn't like (blue metallic over the stock white color) on a 2003 Treck OCLV. It came out very nice. I was quite pleased to add a beautiful blue to the front fork and front part of frame to an all white USPS-themed paint scheme. Disassembly only required removing front wheel and brake caliper.

Miele Man

Painting the frame yourself can be worth it if you know how t o strip off the old paint and how to prepare the frame for the new paint. It's also a great way to get a custom paint job that would be very expensive to have done by a professional. I wanted an Italian themed paint job on one of my old MIELE bicycles and so did the repaint myself. This is what I ended up with.



Cheers

BTinNYC 

+1 on the $120 estimate for a good home paint job, and none of these paints work well outside of their temp and humidity zones.

Abrasives and cleaners, Bondo, 2K primer, 2K clear coat, two cans of Duplicolor paint (small cans); it adds up fast.

ser_gio

I second this post. Painting is a major undertaking and should not be done just to change the color. I see two reasons,
1. major corrosion or paint chips/defects
2. extremely faded colors due to sun exposure, etc.
There are videos on YouTube on how to paint an entire frame, starting with paint removal chemical, and car-grade primer, paint and clear coat. I would estimate $200 for the paints, chemicals and sanding papers/sticks, etc. There are days wait times between coats and sanding process so assume 2-3 weeks of labor before you hit with the clear coat, plus 1-2 weeks to wait for clear coat to harden before you install braze on brackets, etc.