Painting a mountain bike cheaply

jumbone

I have a "nothing special" y-framed mountain bike with dual suspension

A lot of the components are rusty (chain,deraileurr,random nuts an bolts) so I plan on using steel wool, wd40 and 3 in 1 to revive these.

While I am giving the bike a new lease on life, I would like to paint it too. The only thing is I don't want to strip the frame because i would end up losing and breaking parts, shearing/rounding bolts and basically end up with a bike that may fall apart. I will remove at most wheels and seat (seat post is rusted and this may not be possible) and open the breaks (v-breaks not discs)

The paintwork and clearcoat is actually in pretty good condition and its only components that are rusted.

Whats the least work I would need to do to paint the bike? Would the following steps work.


1. Sand/steel wool/paint stripper on the frame (which would be best bearing in mind the clearcoat aswell?)

2. Wet sand the raw frame to give a better surface for paint adhesion

3. Don't prime bike and spray 2 coats of matt black spraypaint (€10 rattlecan from motor factors)

4. Hi grit wet sand. 3rd Coat. sand lightly

5. Mask black parts and components and spray forks, suspension coil and chainstay/topstay bright orange

Should I wire brush, oil chain etc... before or after painting (before might end up with overspray on problem but after might mean rusty dust and oild ruining paintwork)

Assuming adequate drying times and masking, would this leave the bike looking good?

Also, whats the story about painting wheels? can I paint the part that the pad touches or would this wear easily/affect break performance. At the moment the wheels are black with silver coloured spokes. Should I leave the wheels as is or would they be easy to paint orange? Would orange wheels even look good?

Inspiration:



bike isn't a fixie or even road bike - just talking colour scheme

bike also isn't a Porsche GT3 RS







hahaha something like this except matte black

ednwireland

you ned to strip alll the parts off the frame (gel nitromors takes all the paint off but it will strip all the grease as well)
i got a local car repair shop to respray but with a steady hand is possible to use cans, apparently - i dont have oa steady hand

before


after



cant see wheel respraying working, yes the braking surface will wear off

seamus

If you're not prepared to completely strip the bike down, then you're setting yourself up for failure. You'll find it impossible to mask everything adequately without making the paint job look sloppy.

When I was in my teens, I remember my brother's mate asking me if I'd do up/service an old bike of his which he said was great back in the day, but it needed to be made modern. He said he'd had it resprayed, so I assumed it would be an easy job of reassembling it and servicing it.

No no, he'd removed the wheels and the saddle and then spray painted *everything*. It was ****ed - no bolts could be removed, the brakes couldn't be fixed and overall it was unusable. I made a half-hearted attempt at getting the brakes to work before I told him to take it to a bike shop. I think he binned it.

In short, you have to strip it down - everything. If it's full sus, then the frame probably comes in two parts.

DualFrontDiscs

At the risk of sounding condescending........

The bike's not worth the effort to do it right. And doing it wrong will still be time consuming, frustrating, cost more than it's worth spending.

DFD.

jumbone

DualFrontDiscs wrote: »

At the risk of sounding condescending........

The bike's not worth the effort to do it right. And doing it wrong will still be time consuming, frustrating, cost more than it's worth spending.

DFD.

You are right about it not being worth it to do it right. 2 cans of paint for 20 euro, nitromors abut a tenner and i'd have the wd40/3 in 1/sandpaper etc lying about.

The tires are good and the bike works right now. I dont want to jeopardise that if you know what i mean.

As long as the large flat areas on the side of the y frame look ok would be happy - it should be easier to paint than a tube frame too. Also as I want to paint it matte black there is no need to redo clearcoat and i can sand any bits that aren't smooth enough.

I don't really mind if it ends up with a stolen bike paint job - I have a lot of free time this summer and its sort of a project for the sake of a project. The bike owes me nothing - I thought it was ****ed because the wheel was rubbing so I thought I either had a buckled frame or rear wheel until I realised it was just an incredibly loose free wheel

DualFrontDiscs

jumbone wrote: »

I have a lot of free time this summer and its sort of a project for the sake of a project.

If you've loads of free time and IF you're based in Dublin, you could volunteer at Rothar

Lots of bike related projects and perhaps an opportunity to source a bike worthy of your efforts.

DFD.

jumbone

DualFrontDiscs wrote: »

If you've loads of free time and IF you're based in Dublin, you could volunteer at Rothar

Lots of bike related projects and perhaps an opportunity to source a bike worthy of your efforts.

DFD.

Unfortunately i'm not in Dublin but that crowd look pretty good.

I probably won't end up painting my bike but if I do I'll post pictures here. Either to rub your noses in how good it looks or as a cautionary tale for any lazy would be bike painters that are thinking of something similar.

ednwireland

http://www.bikewebsite.com/paint.htm

http://www.google.ie/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=&q=respraying+a+bike&aq=2&aqi=g10&aql=&oq=respraying+a+&gs_rfai=

(youtube videos on that last one)

SubLuminal

If its one of those cheapo full suspension frames don't even bother. Sell it, buy an old steel frame bike, and do that up instead. At the end of the day those cheap full sus frames are just heavy, heavy, badly made with awful components.. avoid avoid avoiidddd..