Well, being as painting is one of the two things that will take me the most time on a bike (the other being welding when I start my next project), I figured I'd share a couple things I learned/ran into on my first bike and maybe some of you other cats can lend an idea or two to get your paint to come out looking smooooooth.
So I was just using rattle cans (do you guys get carded for buying spray paint?, MN requires ID now and you have to be 18 to purchase?! WTH? now it's not just beer and cigs anymore, but paint too!) to do my bike and here are my observations:
1. Painting wheels without removing the spokes and relacing. I used the 3" painters masking tape to flag the spokes, only being concerned about getting it tight to the rim at the bottom of the spoke. What I didn't think about was the bottom of the tape effectively being painted to the rim. So a little test proved that after flagging the spokes, use scisors to cut the tape at an angle up away from the rim so you don't leave little ridges of paint.
2. Make sure that the flags of tape on the spokes are long enough to tuck behind the neighboring spoke for when you paint the other side of the rim. I had a couple that were too short and had to extend them to keep them off the painted side of the rim.
3. Prep work on your frame/fork: I kind of went crazy with the wire brush attachment for my drill to remove some surface rust and other areas where the paint was a bit much to smooth out with hand sanding. However, I did not account for the grooves into the metal nor the layers of paint at some points on the bike. So if you to wire brush or take the paint down to the metal, spend extra time fairing out these rough areas with sand paper, steel wool or a finer bristle wire brush.
4. Multiple coats:This is where it would be helpful for someone with more paint experience to chime in. After applying a coat of paint, I let it set up for about 30 min. Basically it was just a bit tacky when I touched it, but no paint came off on my finger. This is the basic technique I used when doing epoxy for glassing wood (save for epoxy taking much longer to set up). The reason for this is with epoxy, when it is still tacky to the touch, applying the next layer will give you a "chemical bond" as opposed to a "mechanical bond", thus being a stronger adhesion to the layer below. In the end my paint came out looking pretty good, but I don't know if this is the best painting method as doing it this way precludes any sanding between coats.
5. Painting blast zone: I didn't really think much about this but noticed there was a very fine film of paint on the ground and on the walls and my tools that were on the other side of my painting area. Since it was to cold to paint out in the garage, I ventillated a room in my basement, however, didn't account for the paint particles being heavy and falling on things while the pressurizing gasses were vented out the window. So I had to spend some time cleaning up the room. When I moved onto painting my wheels, I put a tarp down on the floor and painted facing one direction rather than blasting in all directions.
Hope this is helpful to someone and feel free to pile on the tips.
So I was just using rattle cans (do you guys get carded for buying spray paint?, MN requires ID now and you have to be 18 to purchase?! WTH? now it's not just beer and cigs anymore, but paint too!) to do my bike and here are my observations:
1. Painting wheels without removing the spokes and relacing. I used the 3" painters masking tape to flag the spokes, only being concerned about getting it tight to the rim at the bottom of the spoke. What I didn't think about was the bottom of the tape effectively being painted to the rim. So a little test proved that after flagging the spokes, use scisors to cut the tape at an angle up away from the rim so you don't leave little ridges of paint.
2. Make sure that the flags of tape on the spokes are long enough to tuck behind the neighboring spoke for when you paint the other side of the rim. I had a couple that were too short and had to extend them to keep them off the painted side of the rim.
3. Prep work on your frame/fork: I kind of went crazy with the wire brush attachment for my drill to remove some surface rust and other areas where the paint was a bit much to smooth out with hand sanding. However, I did not account for the grooves into the metal nor the layers of paint at some points on the bike. So if you to wire brush or take the paint down to the metal, spend extra time fairing out these rough areas with sand paper, steel wool or a finer bristle wire brush.
4. Multiple coats:This is where it would be helpful for someone with more paint experience to chime in. After applying a coat of paint, I let it set up for about 30 min. Basically it was just a bit tacky when I touched it, but no paint came off on my finger. This is the basic technique I used when doing epoxy for glassing wood (save for epoxy taking much longer to set up). The reason for this is with epoxy, when it is still tacky to the touch, applying the next layer will give you a "chemical bond" as opposed to a "mechanical bond", thus being a stronger adhesion to the layer below. In the end my paint came out looking pretty good, but I don't know if this is the best painting method as doing it this way precludes any sanding between coats.
5. Painting blast zone: I didn't really think much about this but noticed there was a very fine film of paint on the ground and on the walls and my tools that were on the other side of my painting area. Since it was to cold to paint out in the garage, I ventillated a room in my basement, however, didn't account for the paint particles being heavy and falling on things while the pressurizing gasses were vented out the window. So I had to spend some time cleaning up the room. When I moved onto painting my wheels, I put a tarp down on the floor and painted facing one direction rather than blasting in all directions.
Hope this is helpful to someone and feel free to pile on the tips.