banjax

I have an old steel bike frame that needs new paint. I know a couple of places in Vancouver that do this, Dekerf and Toxik Design Lab. They look great but also very expensive. I wonder if anyone had any recommendations of other places. I also heard that Marinoni are cheaper, and wondered if anyone had any experiences there?

Thanks!

Prodigy4299

Back in 2006 (so take this with a grain of salt), I got my old aluminum frame powder coated at a car refurbishment place within a stone's throw from the Ikea in PoCo. Don't remember the name, but based on Google Maps it could have been Trick Factory (?).

It ended up being quite a bit less expensive than Toxik, though the actual price escapes me. As of 2021, the frame is still going strong, though the paint job is starting to show its age a bit.

Hope this was even a little useful.

*Scuba 

@Prodigy4299, you probably went to Rainbow powder coating. They were in the industrial are of Coquitlam. However they have closed permanently now.

I do have a co-worker that is an artist who paints bike, but I am not sure what they charge.

kaseyriot

If you’re into DIY you could do this yourself for significantly cheaper. I’m currently doing this with an old vintage frame.

TurboTrueno

I work in auto collision in Burnaby, and have worked for years on the Island in a shop that restores classic cars. Most body shops could do this very easily. It is just a matter of finding a painter who is not already swamped with work, which most of them are here in the Lower Mainland.

You could do most of the prep yourself to save some money, the only tricky part is any masking if it is multi-coloured with fade effects etc...I would leave that for the painter.

I would first clean it with an aggressive cleaner to remove all bonded contaminants, and not embed them into the frame when you are sanding. Then block sand it progressively up to 320 grit, making very sure not to make any flat spots in the round tubing. Start with 80->120->180->240->320. use a cross hatch pattern and "erase" your previous grit's sand-scratches. If you could somehow make a round sanding block that matched the profile of the frame's tubing, that could be ideal. If not, I would just put a folded scotch-brite pad between your fingers and the paper. Just be sure not to leave "finger impressions" in your sand pattern and you should be fine. I would lose all the original paint and get down to bare metal. Be sure to use respiratory protection and gloves, and have a way of cleaning off the dust as you work, either blowing it off or floating it off with a solvent cleaning spray. There is no need to go smoother than 320, the painter will re-sand once they have layed down some primer, and they will get it super smooth and flat, probably up to 800 grit.

You could request some rust proofing for the inside of the frame as well. I would blow in some rust converter if needed (hopefully not needed), etch prime the inside, bake it really nicely under the lamps, then coat it all in a nice layer of cavity wax.

I agree that powder coating is a good budget-friendly idea, and the colour range of powdercoating is quite impressive these days. However, powdercoat shops won't have access to the multitude of tools and products that a body shop will have on hand. I would still go for paint over powder personally. With high end waterborne paint the colour choices are truly unlimited. You can pick any paint code from any car ever made, including Midnight Purple, Mystichrome, BMW Individual palette etc...or "hot rod" flip colours like PPG vibrance etc.

The main reason I would choose autobody paint over a powdercoat is that the modern automotive clear coats are really impressive, and will protect your bike from UV fading for many decades to come. You could ask them to lay on a few extra coats of clear, if you want to wetsand all the "orange-peel" out for a true mirror finish. This is pretty easy to do but if you are worried about "burning through" (it can happen easily on edges) the body shop could take care of this for you as well. The labor costs may be surprisingly cheap although some beers or a bottle of whiskey may need to change hands.

i see now this thread is from 2 years ago, but maybe someone in the future will find this and the information may be useful lol