auburn11

My friend just got a bike. He really loves how it rides, but he just doesn't like the color red, and the bike has a few red stripes on it. Is there a process in which you can just paint over the minor red stripes with another color and make it look good?

Kurogashi

Talk to the guy with the Jurassic Park bike.
Ugh, forgot his name.

PlatyPius

Does red make it ride bad?

auburn11

prolly has a mental affect, making him ride worse. naw, I mean just a minor nuissance, that would be nice to change if there is a way that's not too much trouble

hansel

sand it after every coat, dont skimp on paint, if one coat is bad sand it off it will help you in the long run.

good luck

ScottNotBombs

If you want to re-paint the whole thing, check out some automotive paint shops. There's one by me that'll paint a frame for $30. It'll be cheap primer and whatever color they have laying around, or black, but I've spent more than that on duplicolor and sandpaper before and you could get lucky with the color if they have some leftovers from a car.

old and new

^^^^^ yes, this ids the only way you'll escape the three hundred dollar mark. I've pulled it off but it was because I'd friends who were painters. As the man suggested, you ought not be fussy (sounds like you already are) OR be prepared to wait 'till something comes up at the paint shop.
Just recently in BF, again for the tenth time both here and real world; few painters will look at a bike for less than two. Auto painters ain't all that good at painting small cyl. shaped things, tubes included. Their forte is large surface areas. Spray painting yourself is iffy and by the time you're done with mats., time, it costs close to a hundred to "improve" upon that which you have now.
I SO hate buying or having bikes painted (oppinion), it destroys the value (fact).
I don't think that this pertains to you but powder coating is the better option. It costs about a hundred, give or take twenty or so.... depending. If he wants to make it look good.. fine, it's his choice, a matter of taste and in so doing, it's his bike, more unique. There's no cheap/goodlooking way.
Unless the paint job sucks now, you may want to do a cover-up job with Testors or auto touch-up.

Rice923

If it's just MINOR red stripes you want to cover up, you can buy a small brush kit with some acrylic paint and go over it freehand (pinstriping). If you don't have the skill/steady hands to do this, you may end up hating the results more than the initial paint job.

If you want to repaint the whole frame, bring it to an automotive shop. If you've never painted anything of this caliber on your own before, a bike is probably not the best project for practice.

AngrySaki

I assume that's me.
I painted my bike with "cheap" hardware store spraypaint, which isn't very tough. It gets dinged fairly easily (got a fair amount of paint chips on it touring europe), but I personally don't mind.
It's sort of a time consuming process painting a bike, it needs to be out of commision for a little while. It's not that hard if you're patient though. I had never done anything like that before and I was happy enough with the results.

The general steps are:
Take off all the parts
Sand it lightly (or, if it's an old frame and already has dings in it and you want to get rid of the dings, use paint removing, I've never done it but know people who have and it's quite an ordeal)
paint it with primer
wait a day or so (the paint bottle should say)
Do one coat of paint
wait a day
Do another coat of paint
wait a day
Paint it with clear coat
wait a day
paint it with clear coat again
wait a day

The problem is that supposedly takes paint a month or so to properly cure. When I read instructions on how to paint (found instructions by searching bikeforums.net), most people say to wait couple of weeks to a month before building the bike back up to let the paint cure. I guess it dings easier in those first couple of weeks. So if he doesn't care that much about dings, that's probably not as necessary.

This is the bike i painted
This is it a season later with a few dings in it, although most of the 'damage' is my homemade decals rubbing off on the top tube.