Painting a frame?

[yashicamat]

The Rixon frame I've aquired has, if I'm honest, seen better days with numerous breaks in the paint with most of these exhibiting a bit of surface rust.

My thoughts were to remove the decals, sand everything down (not to bare metal, just to give it a good key), remove the BB, masking tape up the headset (rather than struggle to take the thing out and put it back in again and then use a Hammerite "Direct to Rust Metal Paint" in a red aerosol. I'm relatively good at spray painting (I redid the spoiler on my car and the finish is very good) but this bike is intending to be a hack / commuter anyway.

What do people think? I am trying to avoid the additional outlay of having to have the frame sandblasted etc., but if it HAS to be done then I guess I'll have to live with it (although it's more likely I'll just do an extensive touch-up job instead if that were the case).

Cheers.

 

[GrahamNR17]

I'd urge caution with the Hammerite products. It has relatively little pigment and you need a ton of layers to get good covering, and even then edges will show through the underlying frame colour - I've had that happen even after 7 coats Subsequently I went back to spray enamels which were a million times easier with better covering.

Just my tuppence worth

 

[yashicamat]

The frame is a metallic crimson colour at the moment so the pigment probably wouldn't be an issue. To be honest, the cosmetics are less relevant - I'm after something which will protect the metal.

 

[GrahamNR17]

The frame is a metallic crimson colour at the moment so the pigment probably wouldn't be an issue. To be honest, the cosmetics are less relevant - I'm after something which will protect the metal.

Then Hammerite is probably the best tool for the job

 

[yashicamat]

Cheers. Just hope it's easier dealing with rust on a bike frame than it is with a car. With the latter, it never seems to take long for the rust to pop back through the paint again.

 

[GrahamNR17]

Cheers. Just hope it's easier dealing with rust on a bike frame than it is with a car. With the latter, it never seems to take long for the rust to pop back through the paint again.

It's rare to find a terminally rusty bike, unless it's spent 30 years behind the garden shed. I'm working on a 1950s James bike at the moment and it looked a basket case when I first saw it. But having stripped it down to the last nut and bolt tonight, I find it's in perfectly serviceable order having no structural rust problems at all. Ford, take note

 

[tyred]

I would favour Japlac over Hammerite as a paint. I have very little belief in Hammerite, stemming from a wrought iron gate that is about 100 year old and hadn't been painted in living memory but had that rusted over appearance that you get with wrought iron. I decided to sand it down and gave it two coats of Hammerite to freshen it up. Six months later, it had all blistered up in rusty scabs and looked worse than it did in the first place.

The only decent product in the Hammerite range imo is their Kurust rust convertor.

 

[GrahamNR17]

I would favour Japlac over Hammerite as a paint. I have very little belief in Hammerite, stemming from a wrought iron gate that is about 100 year old and hadn't been painted in living memory but had that rusted over appearance that you get with wrought iron. I decided to sand it down and gave it two coats of Hammerite to freshen it up. Six months later, it had all blistered up in rusty scabs and looked worse than it did in the first place.

The only decent product in the Hammerite range imo is their Kurust rust convertor.

Japlac is nearly my favourite paint. Even I can get a fairly decent finish right off the brush with minimal work between coats