Paint Stripper

[Matthew Moore]

ok so sand paper: fail, paint stripper: fail.
does anyone have a sand blaster or know someone who does?

[JB]

Mega Powder Coating, El Monte.  They've got a sandblaster AND a powdercoater.

You need an enclosed booth / box for sandblasting, you can't just do it in the open air, or you'll get the sand everywhere.

Either just sand everything reasonably smooth, rattle can it, and call it a day, or just pay the $50 to have it done right.

What kind of frame are you working on, anyway?

[david_f]

There's a sandblasting place in Culver City on Jefferson at the foot of the hill.  I used them years ago to sand blast some glass pieces, they did a good job as I recall.  I don't know how they will do for bikes, if you go to them please let us know how it goes.

I'll post the contact info when I find it.

davidf

[Jaz]

Why is sandpaper a fail?

[ScottS]

I think I still have some Jasco left and if I can find it, I'll bring it by for anyone to use.

That being said, a few years ago I attended a seminar on repainting bikes and there were a few points brought up I hadn't thought about.

The seminar included Brian Baylis, who I personally think is absolutely the best bike painter in the business. He used to torch and paint for Masi when they moved to SoCal and has been building, painting and restoring bikes for decades.

Keep in mind that they were talking mostly about vintage collectable bikes so the discussion involved the value of original paint vs. a repainted frame.

Most everyone agreed that a bike will almost always be more valuable with original paint, even if the paint is not in the best condition. Most also agreed that a bike should NEVER be repainted unless it was needed to protect the frame which it almost never needs since the steel is pretty thick. Surface treatment to prevent further rust was recommended instead.

What I hadn't thought about was aside from the argument of value is that every time a frame is repainted, the metal gets thinner due to whatever method is used to strip the old paint. This especially becomes an issue on lugged frames. After several repaints, the lugs get thinner and thinner and the definition gets lost. Several examples were shown and on some of the more severe cases, there was barely any lug work showing.

Recently one of my co-workers decided to repaint his Bare Knuckle and sent it to Olympic Powdercoating, a place the guys at Orange 20 use. The frame came back looking nice until closer inspection revealed a small hole at the seatstay/seattube junction. It could have been a bad welding job on the frame that was covered up by bondo/paint on the original paint job but my guess is that someone got a little too aggressive with the sand blaster.

Just something to be aware of.

-ss

[david_f]

There's a sandblasting place in Culver City on Jefferson at the foot of the hill.  I used them years ago to sand blast some glass pieces, they did a good job as I recall.  I don't know how they will do for bikes, if you go to them please let us know how it goes.

I'll post the contact info when I find it.

davidf

I found it.


Safeway Sandblasting
9450 Jeffrson Blvd.
Culver City,

310 838-2929

good luck,

[Matthew Moore]

Why is sandpaper a fail?

well the its way to hard to get the nooks and crannies on the crank.

thanks for all the in put everyone.