Restoring Your Bicycle: Painting the Frame

Applying the paint. What I do when it's time to paint the bicycle frame is hang it from something. At my mom's there are rafter boards in the garage, and I would simply take a thin rope and tie the frame to it. This allows you to spin the bicycle around slowly, making sure you have an even coat and don't miss spots. However, painting in a garage poses a few problems, none of which should be taken lightly. First, they aren't very well ventilated, even with the doors open, and paint fumes can be very dangerous, so I always recommend either painting in a booth or outside. Second, the overspray will settle on EVERYTHING, turning your entire garage the color of the bicycle. If it's your garage, I suppose it is your choice, but in my case it was MOM's garage, and she didn't appreciate the cool red hue I decided should cover the entire floor and shelf area.

Make sure there is adequate lighting as well. Shadows can play nasty tricks on us, creating the illusion that we are missing spots, which in turn can cause certain parts of the frame to have awfully heavy paint, and others to be too light. This uneven coat will definitely show up in the finished product, so try hard to make it bright when spraying the paint.

Be careful to tape off the bearing journals for the crank and forks; the last thing you want is to have chips of paint and primer mixing in with the bearings and grease once you have the bicycle reassembled. Before reassembly, take a damp cloth or rag and clean the bearing cups out well, just as an added precaution.

At home here I use a paint stand I made specifically for painting bicycle frames; it resembles a hangman's gallows, or a large upside-down L (see article photo). This stand allows me to hang the frame there while I walk around it and spray in the backyard. I prefer outside painting to garage painting due to the bright sunlight and excellent ventilation. The only time working outside is a real downer is during adverse weather conditions; obviously, painting a bicycle in the rain is going to pose certain challenges.

The technique I use is to spray a very thin coat of primer on the bicycle with the can about 8-12 inches from the frame. The first coat should be just enough to see a slight change in color. Then wait a couple minutes, and apply another very thin coat. Employ this process until you have a nice, even coat all over the bicycle frame. The reason to apply primer in this fashion is to avoid runs. Making an attempt to cover the entire frame in one coat is a large mistake; the outcome will be an uneven, runny coat of primer that will be extremely hard to successfully paint over. The same thing goes with the actual paint - thin, quick layers instead of one sweeping, full-cover pass.

Once there is a great coat of primer on the bicycle frame, LIGHTLY sand it with 200 grit or better sandpaper. You want a very fine paper so you don't mar the painted surface. After the bicycle receives a nice even sand, blow the frame off or wipe it with a CLEAN, soft cloth to remove dust and debris before the final coat of paint is applied.

When actually painting the bicycle frame after it has been primed and sanded to your satisfaction, employ the same technique used when applying the primer coat. Light, even passes all over the frame. At first, this will seem impossibly slow and ridiculous, but after three or four passes the holes will start to fill in, and it becomes evident that this technique works, and well. Like the primer coat, if you attempt ONE heavy, single pass coat, the result will be a horribly uneven and run-filled paintjob. Also try to always have a `wet edge` on the spray stream contacting the bicycle, meaning don't allow the fine overspray to stick to the frame, because when it dries it will appear opaque and rough. This takes some trial and error, usually, because it is easy to confuse gaining a `wet look` with `putting the paint on too heavy`. Like the old saying goes, "If you don't have time to do it right the first time, when will you have time to do it again?"

No matter what the suggested dry time is on the can of paint, allow the bicycle to dry for as long as possible before reassembly. The longer the paint is allowed to cure, the harder the top coat will be and the safer it is to handle. You may want to apply a clear coat to the newly painted frame as well, depending on the quality of paint used, and the technique. I have had to clear coat several frames, while quite a few others looked great after the initial painting, so I left them alone and reassembled the bicycle. If it is decided that a clear coat is needed, it can usually be applied a bit heavier than the other two coats in order to create the "wet" look. Don't skip around - use a steady, slow stream of spray and the outcome will look much better.