HOW TO PAINT ALUMINIUM BICYCLE FRAME - STEP BY STEP GUIDE


This documents assumes that you have some basic painting skills.

And that you are not moron.

Here is my old aluminium bike frame - after some 30000km in 5 years.

It is obvious that it needs some serious painting job.

I have decided to sandblast it. This is frame prior to sandblasting.

If you have plenty time on your hands you can use sandpaper to clean 

all paint. I have decided to sandblast it since it is much faster.

 
This is frame after sandblasting. 


Now it is time to do some serious painting job. This is frame hanging on

coat hanger in my celler. It is not recomended that you paint your frame

if temperature is under 5 degree Celsius scale.
 

First goes Aluminium primer. I have decided to use motipdupli primer spray.

It is fast drying and it is quite cheap. You should put at least 2 or 3 coats 
 
One spray is enough for complete frame. 


Here is frame after 4 hours. Primer coat is dry. Now you can use some fine

sandpaper (I have used P1600) on primer coat. Be gentle!


After sandpapering primer frame is finally ready for spraying!

I have used black spray, also from motipdupli. You should put at least

2 or 3 coats. Since I have used two cans of spray I have put 5-6 coats

of color. You should wait at least 2 hours before each coat.


At the end came gloss (clear lacquer) for that shiny look. Here
is final result:



Wait at least 48 hours before mounting all parts back! 

Overall cost: under 30 euros...

In Belgrade, end of November, begining of December 2007.