Experiences with Spray.bike paints?

[heartattackride]

Seems to good to be true... Good? Bad? Easy? Easy to screw up? What’s your story? https://spraybike.us ?

[prototoast]

I think I've posted about my experiences before, but Spray.Bike paint is harder to screw up than other paint, but harder to get a good quality finish. Basically compression to mediocrity.

[heartattackride]

... harder to screw up than other paint, but harder to get a good quality finish. Basically compression to mediocrity.
That is how I was assuming it would be.

[weisan]

I have spray-painted a couple of frames with varying degree of success in the past. But recently I struck gold by locating an industrial powder coat painter that is literally down the street from me. He charges $125 for a single color and the turnaround is less than a week.... the final result is better than any home baked painting process I can come up on my own, I couldn't be happier.

http://www.alicehui.com/bike/Paint/IMG_6649.jpg

[unterhausen]

The only local powder coater does an okay job, but last time I checked they wouldn't tell me how long it would take. Used to be a guy that worked out at the hospital that would get a bike done the next day. If he was busy, you would drop it off in his car at the hospital :)

[RobJ]

I have used it with pretty good results. I used it to customize my matte black Open a while back. See this thread:

https://forums.thepaceline.net/showthread.php?t=241366&highlight=open

I think it works better and goes down smoother on steel and alloy. I just had the paints out last night actually testing the paint on a cheap alloy stem. I did not prep the Open. Maybe a light sanding may have improved the adherence or smoothness of the paint. It goes down with a slightly rough texture on the carbon, but a lot smoother on the metal. It's not shop quality of course, but a lot better than standard rattlecan. The only other advice is use one of their matte or glossy Transparent Finishes too. Without it, the paint can be smudged or scratched with enough pressure.

Spray.bike is owned or affiliated with SquidBikes and they have some super cool designs. Shows what you can do with the paint with a little bit of time and effort.

[heartattackride]

That looks sweet RobJ.

I had forgot they were associated with Squid Bikes.

I’m trying to do a budget HT MTB and most of the frames I’m finding I hate the colors and I’m for a bit of creative project.

[RobJ]

That looks sweet RobJ.

I had forgot they were associated with Squid Bikes.

I’m trying to do a budget HT MTB and most of the frames I’m finding I hate the colors and I’m for a bit of creative project.


Thanks!

I think this would be a perfect project for the Spray.bike paint. It’s a MTB so used to not having showroom paint and if you are going front suspension that’s less you have to paint. It definitely opens up purchasing options with the frames.


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[doomridesout]

I'll echo what others have said- easy to use, not the highest quality finish. It's a great option for proof of concept and a bit of a project.

[ultraman6970]

You want good paint you have to do polyurethane or PC. Any rattlecan like that or home depot stuff wont compare to urethane. The issue is that what you need for urethane is stuff that not everybody has including a good big back yard.

Personally need to try that paint but I would shoot it over acrylic primer. If sticks to that really well and then you put urethane clear on top, that should last long time. Again... acrylic primer and urethane clear arent cheap and you need a big backyard and compressor and stuff.

[Oo0cH]

I've painted my fork with it. I wanted a polka dot pattern, but a test piece didn't come out the way i wanted. You could see the height differences between the layers. The silver was too shiny for me, so i opted for all black. Their solid colours work very well, no dripping occurred while spraying the three layers i've painted. For cleaning in between i've only used a paper towel, as any alcohol based solvent will eat the paint away. The Clearcoats are also a bit more finicky though, and they will run. I Sanded again and recleared, it turned out ok, but far from professional (but those expectations are unrealistic from the start, imho). As for durability, i have around 500km behind me and so far so good.

[unterhausen]

You want good paint you have to do polyurethane or PC. Any rattlecan like that or home depot stuff wont compare to urethane. The issue is that what you need for urethane is stuff that not everybody has including a good big back yard.
I sometimes wonder if my asthma is related to using polyurethane without proper PPE. It wasn't commonly known how dangerous it could be back in the late '70s. And back then, car painters were used to getting lung damage.

[ultraman6970]

Asthma could be for a lot of things, know one car painter, he is like 500 pounds aswell... no problems so far so as lung cancer... u can smoke all your life and nothing happens, then others get a nasty flu and the lungs are done forever.

But yeah... probably... imagine you are using steroids or something, right?

Thats why I mentioned large backyard because spray that stuff is pretty nasty.

There's water base paint aswell, safer but what about the pigments?

[unterhausen]

Isocyanate affects some people more than others. Some people have a fatal case of asthma-like symptoms right away, others it takes multiple exposures. The truck bed lining industry has a lot of examples of this. They used to spray without ppe at all. I never did that, but I'm sure I got more exposure than makes sense before and after spraying.

I love painting bikes, but it takes a lot of money to set up properly and my asthma isn't getting better as it is. It's mostly exercise induced, but most of the time I just walk around with mild bronchospasms and just ignore it.

[old fat man]

If you're looking at metal frames, definitely go powder coat. I found a guy in CT that stripped the original paint, my crummy spray paint job, and powder coated candy purple for $90. It's not show quality but it's way better than I ever could have done.