leon6782

Hey All, I'm about to start a rebuild on THIS older Seven Cycles Resolute frame. Instead of the bland grey gloss paint you see here, I was thinking of stripping the entire bike, and finding some kind of steel treatment/sealant service that would provide rust protection but still maintain a raw steel look.

Does anyone have any experience with this? I'm in the NYC area, so any steel paint/treatment/chrome shop recommendations would be greatly appreciated. I doubt I'd be able to do this on my own.

unterhausen

Raw steel has been big in car circles for a while. I feel like it's going to rust eventually, which would be annoying with a car. There are finishes that are supposed to work, and apparently there are clear powder coats that are supposed to work well over raw steel. A lot of people have done this and most of them reported they got at most a year or two before rust developed. I'm not a big fan of the look of raw sandblasted steel, which is what you would get under powder coat, I think.

I'm thinking about using a charred BLO finish with wax on a bike I don't care about. At this point I wouldn't do that with a nice frame like that seven.

leon6782

Yeah, that's the general sentiment I get when I ask in bike shops or mechanics in person. I just wonder how things like rifles, golf clubs, etc seem to have all kinds of various non-painted finishes, and a lot of those items seem to be very resistant to rust. Maybe it comes down to heat treating or just the quality and thickness of the steal to begin with? I guess a little bit of rust on a frame that's only a few mm thick is a much bigger deal than a sand wedge that is a solid chunk of steel?

I feel like I need to talk to a serious materials expert for at least 30mins to get all my questions answered haha.

If anyone else has any thoughts/experience or friends who just happen to be materials experts, let us know!

bulgie 

The more polished the surface is, the slower it rusts. Polishing bike frames is difficult, if you don't want to lose the crisp edge definition that is a hallmark of an artisanal frame. Even if you wouldn't mind rounded edges, polishing a previously-sandblasted frame is a huge amount of work. Getting down into all the crevices is near-impossible, so some blasted areas will probably remain, and a blasted finish is like a candy-store for rust. I'm imagining the rust looking at the blasted surface and saying "yum!"

Cars, shotguns and golf clubs are easier shapes to polish, plus they were never sandblasted. The classic "gun blue" finish on guns starts with a high polish. The bluing is actually an oxide coating if I remember right. It slows but doesn't prevent rust by itself, you rub it with oil, and some penetrates into the oxide coat and stays there even when the item doesn't feel oily. You couldn't clear-coat over that without degreasing first to get all the oil out.

Higher alloy content in the steel also helps. Reynolds 853 for example is practically stainless, tho Reynolds doesn't call it that, they have actual SS tubesets they'd like to sell you...

unterhausen

Guns aren't all that resistant to rust, but traditionally they were blued, which is pretty rust resistant. Nobody blues a bike frame using a proper bluing procedure. There is bluing in a can, which some people use on bikes. It's less than fully successful from what I can tell. I once asked the machinist at work about this subject referencing guns, and he said the old guys used to treat scratches on their guns by urinating on them. So that's another option for finishing your frame. And like Mark says, anyone that cares for a gun oils it regularly. You could do that with a bike, but bikes see a lot more sweat. I have one frame I have only been waxing. It has some rust on it. I really need to get it coated.

t2p

you could clear coat the frame

the exhaust pipes on my dirt bikes are not painted - I would just go over them with a scotchbrite pad and WD-40 now and then ... but that might not be an ideal option for a bike frame

JohnDThompson 

Clear coat may slow, but not stop, rust. Clear coat and finish color coats are not really impermeable to moisture; that's what the primer coat is for, as well as to improve adherence of the top coats.

jasoninohio

I have very little experience with this but I did some research last year and I think the conclusion is that for a bike, you can certainly do the raw look for the sake of the aesthetic but it will develop some kind of surface rust even if coated or treated, which might actually look great but point being it should be a fair-weather bike and will need to be wiped off with WD-40 or whatever periodically if actually raw, if under clearcoat or powder it just gets that spiderweb rust patina under it..

I was interested in doing a cold-blued look; the one I did was a 90's Giant steel road frame, stripped it entirely with a wire wheel (which takes forever), buff it with WD-40 and #2 steel wool, clean with brake cleaner and let it dry, then I did the black oxide/cold bluing liquid applied by rubbing on with cotton balls, then wipe that down with a wet rag and let it dry and we're done, I'll see if I have some pics to attach (I haven't even built the thing up yet)

My take-away was that I am happy enough with how this cold-blue thing came out, I'm not going to clearcoat it or anything more and I wouldn't do it again because of how much work is involved but it was interesting and a fun project for a nice retro bike that had bad paint...





Freshly stripped, flash rust happens within days

Ready for cold blue stuff

Result was a smooth even dark finish

guy153

Rifles and golf clubs don't usually see the kind of outdoor use that bikes do. A killer is getting covered in wet mud and then being stored somewhere where it doesn't dry out quickly. OK you might get mud on your golf clubs but in UK we also have salt on the roads.

Cromoly steel is reasonably rust resistant. But you're right it's very thin. I have tried "gun blue" from a bottle on a frame followed by oil, let that dry, clean with acetone and then 2K clear. But I don't know how well it will hold up long term.

Of course you could make your frame out of stainless like Columbus XCr or Reynolds 953. These are expensive, hard to work with, and tricky to weld though (you will need a backpurge).

guy153

My 631 frame was rusting all right where the spray.bike paint had fallen off. 631 is the same alloy as 853, just not heat treated. Just surface rust and have repainted and 2K cleared and it's all nice now. But that was only after a year or two. Left to its own devices it would have had big holes in it by 10y.

Looking at the numbers in the Reynolds docs, 631 and 853 are 95% iron, 525 (regular cromoly) is 98%. But 953 (one of the stainless ones) is only 75% iron. About 10% Cr, 10% Ni plus some Ti and Mo.

So maybe 853 rusts a bit less than regular cromoly but you definitely need paint. Unless you live in Southern California maybe.

guy153

Nice job! That's how I did it on the frame I tried this on, except acetone instead of brake cleaner (similar stuff). It looked similar. I then put glossy 2K clear over the top.

unterhausen

When I was at Trek, Mike Appel built a frame and decided to clear coat it. After about a month there was a spider web of rust under the clear coat. Now that I think of it, I don't know what clear coat he used since Trek was using Imron at the time and it was a single color coat with no clear. But I assume Dupont had a clear. Everybody thought it looked great, but obviously Mike was disappointed and the spider web was going to take over. He had spent a lot of time polishing that bike. Wisconsin is not a environment for doing this, but Seattle is probably worse.

I'm nowhere near the perfectionist Mike is, so seeing him fail at this removed my desire to ever try it. Then decades later lots of people started talking about how great of an idea it would be to go with clear coat and I always try to discourage it. Speedwagon even sold bikes coated that way, I wonder how they are doing. For a framebuilder with their own bike it sometimes doesn't seem worth it to get them painted because each one might only be around for a short while. Some builders use oil. What I found is that if it's a good frame it hangs around for a long time, so paint is usually worth the money. And if you have it clear coated with something that costs as much as a color paint job, you are going to pay twice. At least when Mike built that frame, it only cost us $20 to have a frame painted. But it must have hurt to sandblast that frame after all the polishing work.

Tbh, I don't really like the look. If someone came out with a clear or a clear powdercoat that was demonstrated to work, I might use it because people like it. But to me, a good color coat is the way to go.

Andrew R Stewart 

I agree with most of the experiences and opinions here. I have cold out of a can blued a couple of frames with clear rattle can after, but one is already replaced/gone and the other doesn't see much use anyway. Were I to be a better brazer, frame finisher, I might a raw frame to last a while Andy

georges1

When I had received back then my Jamis MTB Reynolds 853 Frame,the bottom bracket was having some rust so I treated it with a specific black antirust treatment,I spread this antirust inside the seat tube, bottom bracket and steering tube so be sure that there would be no more rust. Back in 2015,I have bought my Kona Kilaeua MTB framewhich despite it was in excellent condition was also treated with colorless rustol inthe seat tube,bottom bracket, steerer and inside stays and seat stays.I never had that this issue with my 753 Reynolds framed Raleigh nor with my 708 Reynolds Classic framed Peugeot but those were Managanese Molybdene tubes, which I have seen being less prone to rust than 631 and 853.

guy153

631/853 is also kind of Manganese Molybdenum but has more chromium than 753. It's sometimes called CrMnMo or Chrome Manganese Molybdenum. But I don't know the exact composition of 753 (and have never heard of 708!). Don't know what exactly determines rustiness either but the amount of iron in there seems plausible.

They may be a bit better than cromoly. Maybe I should do a science experiment with some of my offcuts and some salt water

unterhausen

I'm not sure of the exact composition that causes rust either. 753 was 531 with better marketing. Okay, it was heat treated. 531 had what looked to be a phosphorus treatment. You can tell because it's a dark green. Nowadays everything is silver, so no treatment. I have never heard anyone mention this about 531, but you can tell it on sight. I don't think it's mill scale. At Trek in the '70s, every frame went through 7 dip tanks and the frames could sit around forever in high humidity and not rust. I think there was some phosphorus in a couple of the tanks. If you look at the initial Trek brochures in the background of the picture of the two bearded guys (Dick Nolan and Mike Appel) there were racks of frames that they never sold. I never knew why, they probably should have scrapped them. But they didn't rust.

I have a frame made of reissue Columbus SL and the surface rust on that is pretty striking. Don't think I have ever had a bike rust like that before.

Jeff Neese

I've had two bikes powdercoated, by someone that has a lot of experience with bicycles. (Bean's Best, in Ann Arbor). I asked him about this very thing and he said yes, there is a clear powdercoat and he's done it, but not to expect it to look good. He strips the old paint by sandblasting and says that after clear powdercoating, the frame just looks kind of a uniform, drab grey color. That's what you have now though, right?

georges1

I have seen very occasionnally some rusty frames with Reynolds 531 ,almost none with 753,731,708 classic and 653. With I have seen many rusty SL, SLX, TSX, Thron and Brain frames. Cyclex being inferior to Nivacrom and Thermacrom,I am not astonished about that they rust faster.With Excell tubing never seen one being rusty. The 7 dip tanks was perphaps inspired about how chrysler corporation were rustproofing the chassis of their cars as well as the bodyframes of their cars back in the 60's-70's.

Sortadelux

What a timely thread! I'm "building" an 80's Raleigh Tri-Lite for a couple of sprints and an olympic this year. The paint is tore up with base coat showing on the aluminum triangle and rust present on the rear tri and forks. I'm going to have it media blasted to keep chemicals away from the bonded lugs. I've played around with the idea of clearing it despite (or because of) the unique frame construction. I don't mind it ugly, but I would like durable.

kraftwerk 

Sortadelux welcome to bike forums! You will find lot of information here , some of it will even be accurate and useful.
For that tri-lite frame you will need a two-part etching primer made especially for aluminum, as a first coat.

original poster, leon6782 : you are in luck, you are in nyc… ( Ohio would actually be better...) but there is a small factory,
Wilco Finishing Corporation 1288 Willoughby Ave, Brooklyn who does chrome and nickel plating.

I have never brought him a bike frame...

...but am thinking about it. I have had him plate some car parts etc. nickel would give you that 'raws steel' look you are going for.
Not sure how durable it would be, Wilco has two ONE star reviews..lol's.
Maybe better to try: https://www.daytongrey.com/about-us/2701288
in Asbury Park NJ
they might even strip the paint off as well.
There is also a guy in the Bronx who I KNOW does bike frames, have only heard about > > trying to find him !!
I want to compare services and maybe find a cheaper price point if anyone knows of a plater.
I am interested in nickel - plating a frame.... unless someone here can talk me out if it.

A first issue is before you bring your frame to any of these platers: you will have to entirely strip your frame and polish out any bumps & corrosion or rust.
Otherwise it will be plated on top of imperfections and bumps...

For that you are looking at 18 hrs of work ..at least.

Russ Roth

Back around 2000 I had Harry Havnoonian make be a custom cyclocross frameset made of full 853 which I had sent to me unfinished. Once I received it I did nothing to it, and it came with some minor rust streaks, not really spots so much as a couple of small spider webs. Had the local powder coating place clear coat it untreated so you could see the brass from the brazing and tiny streaks of colorful rust. In the 5+ years I had it the rust never spread or got deeper. It was a rather plain look though no worse than the flat black or greys that quite a few bikes come with anyways. I did a half dozen cross races in New England every year and was even used for light duty mtb riding since it was build with mtb tubing and I asked for it to handle 1.5" tires.

unterhausen

One of the workers at trek when I was there had a frame nickel plated. He said he wanted something different, because everyone gets frames chrome plated. So somewhere out there, there is a '70s trek that was nickel plated.
I always thought it was a bit blah. I have machined hard nickel plate and then it looks okay, but it's still like a dull chrome. But it shouldn't rust if the plating was done right. Raw, it looks like one of those hot dipped galvanized exterior nails.

I don't remember anyone getting a Trek chrome plated around that time. That would be pretty neat.

Andrew R Stewart 

One of my "youth years in the local bike club" mentors built his own frame. Through his work life contacts (Kodak IIRC) he had it plated, stopping at the nickel layer (over copper and what would be the base for the chrome). He put many thousands of miles on it over a couple of decades. He told me that the nickel was porous and would show the copper corrosion coming through if he didn't keep on top of the periodic wipe downs. The nickel was not as hard as the chrome would have been and some spots showed the wear through from cables over the years. He also said that he was very happy with the nickel look (somewhat more yellow than chrome) but in hindsight would have had the chrome plate layer added for better corrosion and rubbing wear protection. Andy

bulgie 

Nickel plate, over copper but with no chrome over it, can look pretty shiny. It's mostly down to how well they polished the copper.



But nickel tarnishes, and as Andy mentioned, its scratch and wear resistance is lower.

Mark B

unterhausen

It also depends on how thick they put on the nickel. I have a tooling plate and a bench center that are relatively shiny, but the guy's Trek and the workpiece I machined had a thicker coating. Although maybe there's a difference with electroless nickel too, I'm not sure. If you do an image search for electroless nickel, you'll find that surface finish is all over the place.