How To Paint Your Bicycle
The idea of painting one of my bikes has been a project I’ve thought on-and-off about for a while, until last week when I decided to follow through with it.
I’ve always been afraid that I could never match the quality of paint job that you see from talents such as Death Spray Custom, or independent bike manufacturers. But once I embraced the fact that I could never be as good as they are in my first attempt, I decided to do the next best thing.
I stole.
I googled, & devoured every Instagram photo of every piece of work shared online from DSC & Ritte Bicycle to conceptualize my own design pattern.
Once I decided the direction I wanted to take, I then had to decide how I wanted to go about painting my frame since that would greatly influence what and how I will design.
I narrowed my options down to three choices
- powder coating
- spray paint
- paint gun/airbrush
Each method has it’s own pros & cons, so my decision came down to cost and time it would take to gather all the material.
Powder coating was the first option to be eliminated because it appeared to cost the most and would require me to take it to a professional to do the work, removing all the fun from the project.
I was already pretty familiar with spray paint, but my biggest concern was color selection, and ability to make fine details on a surface such as a bike frame. With that said I decided to investigate more into paint guns/airbrushing.
The most influential appeal to using a paint gun/airbrushing was the fact that it’s the most popular method used by artists like DSC, and other frame artists.The problem with going this method turned out to be the financial investment required to get started if you don’t have someone who will let you borrow their equipment, which I did not.
Ebay and my natural dislike for the cheapest tools put my costs for a used gun around $40 dollars + about a week for it to be delivered. $40 isn’t bad, but then you have to consider the cost of paint which bounces between $8-$15 depending on the volume. Now at this point we’re looking at $40 for a gun + $60 for paint + $10 for primer + another whatever for a finish varnish/cleaning material and a week wait time to get the gun.
Now if I wasn’t impatient, I wouldn’t mind the wait, but unfortunately I am. So going the paint gun route is slowing looking like it’s about to be scratched off.
“Since it was Montana paint, I knew it would be of quality”
I turned my attention back to spray paint for it’s simplicity and familiarity.
A can of paint can run anywhere from $6 to $10 depending on the store and the quality of paint. I’m a fan of Montana paint so that was the brand I knew I would want to get. The biggest variable was finding a place that sells it in the Seattle area. I knew of Art Primo, but they’re only open for select hours on Fridays, that just weren’t going to work for me. I ended up finding an art supply store in the Seattle U-District that sold Montana Gold.
I’ve never used this series of paint, but since it was Montana paint, I knew it would be of quality, even if it was about a $1.50 more a can then their 94 or hardcore series.
I bought 2x Anthracite grey, 1 100% yellow, 1 cyan, 1 magenta, 1 neon yellow, 1 cap cleaner, 3x varnish gloss. Along with 2 cans of grey automotive primer, masking tape, and masking paper. This came out to about $120 total.
I could have saved roughly $20 had I ordered my paint online or went to Art Primo, but it was worth it for connivence.
After I got my paint situation set, I finally began the process of stripping down my bike.
I unscrewed everything that had a screw, pulled apart everything that could be pulled until I had a bare frame with a crank and a chain left attached, which require specialized tools.
Your chain is the easiest of the two. It requires a chain breaker which can be found at any bike shop.
I used Park Tool’s Chain Breaker. An easy to use tool with simple instructions on the back of the package.
To remove a crank, you need a crank puller. I used a Part Tool Universal Crank Puller, something I would not recommend to anyone. It took me close to 3 hours to remove my crank/remove the tool from my crank arm.
I would advise going with a different crank puller, or just get your local bike shop to do it. Either option will cost you about the same, roughly $15 to $20.
Once you have everything finally removed you now have to remove as much of your original paint as possible.
There are a few options for you to use..
- sandblasting
- paint stripper
- sandpaper
I’m cheap, so I went with sanding my frame by hand. It’s by far the slowest method, but it works, and when you have access to a near unlimited supply of sandpaper, you don’t have much to complain about. I used a combination of 400 & 150 sandpaper.
(Most people opt to go with a paint stripper, which can be messy, but very effective, and quick)
I easily spent 4 to 5 hours sanding the frame down to a level that I felt would be ok. It wasn’t perfect, but it would do.
The next step was hanging the frame in a spot ideal for spraying. I found a spot in my garage where I could hang the frame from electrical piping that ran along the ceiling, and then covered everything around it that could get sprayed with an old bed sheet/butcher paper. It was perfect.
Once hung, I sprayed two coats of grey automotive primer on everything that would be painted. (frame, fork, seat post, seat post clamp)
After the primer dried, I tapped off the first area I wanted paint, and covered everything that I did not.
For each color, I would do two coats each before moving on to the next color.
After the grey, I worked my way from the front to back.
Once finished, it was ready to be varnished. You have two options with varnish, glossy or matte. I choose a glossy finish to give it a professional look.
Once varnished, I let everything sit for 48hrs to be sure it completed dried before re-assembling.
The most impressive part of the whole job was seeing how clean all my lines came out. Not one was bad and that had to do with taping. You want to slightly overlay you paint. When I taped for the Cyan, I made sure to tape a faction of a cm below the edge of the Anthracite so that just a sliver was showing.
The final Product:
After sharing this picture on Instagram, I received praising comments from Ritte Cycling and one of their painters. This was very rewarding to be praised after all the hours that went into this project by the people that developed the original design.
If you have a question about painting your bike, my bike, spray paint, the mysteries of life, anything leave a comment or @ me on twitter at @tvhandy.
Thank you for reading.
