sand blasting the frame
 

hi.

i have in mind to stripe my dr a sand blast it and re spray it coz it looks like it could do with it and mostly coz im not riding it and its on a sorn and i fancy a poject.

anyone know anything about doing this.?
you think its worth doing it myself or just paying for it?

its not really my project if i just pay for it.. but thinking ill spend more on equepment than paying someone to do it.

:thumbup1: thanks

Hi Jimmy,

Yes you will likely spend more on sand blasting equipment than hiring out the job on a small job like a moto frame. But who says you have to sand blast the frame? If you have more time than money there are other alternatives. You don't have to sand off good paint on a bike frame to change color. All you need to do is scuff the good paint with a fine grit sandpaper, feather out the chips and sand down to bare metal any small rust spots. Hang it in your shed from some wire and prime and paint with quality paint and you can achieve quite good results. Just be careful to mask off the headstock and any threaded holes to avoid clogging with paint.

Of course we all learn that it is often cheaper to buy a well restored bike that some poor anal retentive guy with a garage floor so spotless you could eat off it obsessed on than to do it ourselves. But what fun is that?

Cheers,
John Downs

It's not worth the time and effort to sandblast an old bike frame .
You'd have to strip it right down and make sure that before you paint it that the abrasive is cleaned out of every nook and cranny ,chances are that it will get into swing arm or head stock bearings and cause you grief later on .

Better IMHO to use paint stripper or sand and feather the rough areas and apply a good hard finish frame paint like PJ1 if it's still available .

I'm currently striping my frame of paint on my restoration project. I'm using nitromorse paint stripper and when I spray it I'm going to use black hammerite with maybe a touch of plastersiser in it. A paint spayer friend put me onto this and said it goes really hard but stays a bit flexible if that makes sense.. Dont use normal car spray paint its not really designed for tubing and chips easy..

Where do you live? I have a compressor and spray gun if your near Poole, England..haha

ok john.

thanks for that.

think i would prefer to do it myself as you have explained.

i have more time than money thats for sure.

so 'scuff' you meaning sand with sand paper.
and spray with decent paint from the can yes?

sweet.

thinking i might start after christmas.

i live on the north norfolk coast.
burnham market

not sure where poole is.

so its best im guessing to use a compresser and spray gun.

ive used spray from a can before, from halfords and it dont do the job really.

I'm on the south coast haha bit of a trek mate.. Yeah I would use a compressor and spray gun you can get some fairly good deals. Nothing fancy just a small compressor but make sure if you get one it has a regulator to adjust the working pressure for the spay gun.. My compressor was about £80 and the gun about £20 but I use the compressor all the time so well worth it..

so the way is.
1.sand it down and take all rust of and edges.
2. prime it... now would this go through the spray gum,... or from a can?
3. give a decent coat of quality paint.

anything after this.
is there no layer after the paint?

cheerrrs

speaking about tools and equipment.

do you guys know about bidspotter uk

buisnesses going bankrupt and you can get some pretty good deals.

though you have to travel to pick things up.

but worth a look.

www.bidspotter.co.uk

I would take it back to bare metal with paint stripper and a wire brush is a 4" grinder and then depending on what paint you use you may need a primer. I would try to avoid primer if possible and go with a hard paint (primer may be softer and chip off). There is an acrylic spray can paint you can use but I find its still a bit on the soft side. (I bought some from ebay) I have used this on air boxes and bits that wont come into direct conact with flying stones etc..

Thanks ffor the heads up on bidspotter, not seen it before :-)

jim. you saying you would use hammerite. Where you going to be getting theis paint from and will you be using your spray gun to do this?

so your taking your bike to bare metal and then just spray a few coats of hammerite on.?

whats your project jim?
what bike you working on?

I will be using the smoothrite version I think it is, just from B&Q add some thinners and spray it from the gun building up thin coats of paint. You can lightly sand it with a really fine paper just to flatten it off before the final coat. Depends how fussy you want to be really..

I'm restoring a 1976 Honda cb500t for a bit of fun. I need to get it done so I can get on with building a light weight trail adventure bike..

The finished product
 

It really depends on what you want the finished product to look like.

You can just remove all the loose paint, rust and repair any other damaged surface, prep and paint over the top. This will be fine but be under no illusions that this will not be as good as stripping to bare metal and repainting with quality paints or better still powder coating.

Having done a frame back to bare metal with paint stripper, rotary wire brushes, sanders and hand sanding. It took a long, long time and if given the a choice again I would get it sand blasted. Blocking off/packing/closing up the bearings is not that hard. If worst comes to worse and you do damage a bearing replacing a bearing at this stage (stripped down bike) is not a big deal in terms of what you will do from there.

It all depends on how long you have and what you want the finished product to look like/quality of finish.