Powder Coat vs. Wet Paint...

A Muzi wrote in message ...
"Matt O'Toole" wrote in message ...
-good paint advice, summing up with-
the best finishes are still with
paint. -snip- Powdercoat is usually much cheaper.

Jeff Starr wrote:
Hi, more questions, than answers. What is used on new bikes.
-snip-
Final question, what do these place charge for frame refinishing?

I've owned a wide range of bicycles. I've sprayed a lot of
cars and many more bicycles, both repaints and touchups. I
do a good number of all-parts-off align/wash/touch
up/wax/rebuild on various bicycles, modern and classic.

I can tell you one thing with certainty.

My black bikes look much better over the long term than
anything else. Black is the only color that touches up
acceptably.

Of course if you don't plan on riding the same bike
regularly for thirty years that may be less important to you.

You'll get plenty of advice on other points here I'm sure.

Dear Andrew,

My ill-painted ears just perked up and twitched with
interest. So black paint touches up better? I didn't
know this, most of my paint being protected by thick
layers of grime, bird droppings, and muddy cat-paw
prints.

The only thing that I knew about paint before this was
that black is the worst color from a manufacturer's point
of view, if what I read in Randall Stoss's "Steve Jobs
and the NeXT Big Thing" was true. Among the other impractical
things Jobs insisted on (cast magnesium cases with
absolutely no slope to ease extraction) was a flat
black paint job that Stoss said showed the slightest
imperfections and even the faint scuffing from
travelling in shipping boxes.

He added that car makers saved their very best bodies for
black paint because it would show even minor sheet metal
imperfections more than any other color.

But now you've said that black touches up better,
and I expect that your experience is considerably
greater than Stoss's.

So do you find that black touches up better, but
needs touch-up more often than other colors? Does
Stoss's notion about factory-fresh black being
more delicate strike you as true?

And do you have any other painting tid-bits for the
chronically curious? Folks like you and Jobst often
fail to realize that what you take for granted and
not even worth mentioning fascinates the rest of us.

Hopefully,

Carl Fogel

On 20 Nov 2003 22:20:54 -0800, (Carl Fogel)
wrote:

But now you've said that black touches up better,
and I expect that your experience is considerably
greater than Stoss's.

So do you find that black touches up better, but
needs touch-up more often than other colors? Does
Stoss's notion about factory-fresh black being
more delicate strike you as true?

I like black too. My CAAD 4 Cannondale is not glossy but flat black.
It touches up effortlessly and invisibly with Testor's flat black
model paint.

(Carl Fogel) wrote in message . com...


The only thing that I knew about paint before this was
that black is the worst color from a manufacturer's point
of view, if what I read in Randall Stoss's "Steve Jobs
and the NeXT Big Thing" was true. Among the other impractical
things Jobs insisted on (cast magnesium cases with
absolutely no slope to ease extraction) was a flat
black paint job that Stoss said showed the slightest
imperfections and even the faint scuffing from
travelling in shipping boxes.

He added that car makers saved their very best bodies for
black paint because it would show even minor sheet metal
imperfections more than any other color.

But now you've said that black touches up better,
and I expect that your experience is considerably
greater than Stoss's.

So do you find that black touches up better, but
needs touch-up more often than other colors? Does
Stoss's notion about factory-fresh black being
more delicate strike you as true?

And do you have any other painting tid-bits for the
chronically curious? Folks like you and Jobst often
fail to realize that what you take for granted and
not even worth mentioning fascinates the rest of us.

Hopefully,

Carl Fogel

Hi, bicycle frames ar quite different from the large, mostly sheet
metal panels of cars. Yes, on cars, gloss black will show every
imperfection and requires more prep work than other colors. If you
want to hide something, paint the car white. As far as touch up, black
can not be blended. You most repaint full panels. Another
consideration, is that black is harder to keep clean. It will show
dust much more than most other colors.
I personally wouldn't paint any car or bike black, that I was going to
use every day. Although a bike wouldn't be that hard, to keep clean
and waxed.
I should mention, my comments on black paint are based on what I
learned in auto body repair classes and jobs, during the '70s. And
other auto finish related work up to 1990. So there may have been a
few innovations in the last 13 years.
Jeff

"Matt O'Toole" wrote in message ...
-good paint advice, summing up with-
the best finishes are still with
paint. -snip- Powdercoat is usually much cheaper.

Jeff Starr wrote:
Hi, more questions, than answers. What is used on new bikes.
-snip-
Final question, what do these place charge for frame refinishing?

A Muzi wrote in message ...
-essentially "black touches up easily"-

Carl Fogel wrote:
-essentially, "oh, yeah, really?"-

Carl, don't overanalyze this.

On a bike (tube, as opposed to a flat-panel car), you mostly
just need the color to match and black is easier to acheive
that.

Ask anyone who's bounced back and forth between two reds for
an afternoon. My best friend, when I was spraying her bike,
stood over me demanding "more red" and "more blue" until her
purple paint was "just right".. Sheeeesh, black at least has
no value judgement!

White, as any painter can tell you , is bloody hell because
it always has a slight tint of another color and it almost
_never_ matches. The guy who sells me paint gets $100 to do
a color match for appliances. That's very skilled and time
consuming work.

Black is just black. Hell, parts of my steel mudguards are
touched up with black magic marker. Looks fine.

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

A Muzi wrote in message ...
"Matt O'Toole" wrote in message ...
-good paint advice, summing up with-
the best finishes are still with
paint. -snip- Powdercoat is usually much cheaper.

Jeff Starr wrote:
Hi, more questions, than answers. What is used on new bikes.
-snip-
Final question, what do these place charge for frame refinishing?

A Muzi wrote in message ...
-essentially "black touches up easily"-

Carl Fogel wrote:
-essentially, "oh, yeah, really?"-

Carl, don't overanalyze this.

On a bike (tube, as opposed to a flat-panel car), you mostly
just need the color to match and black is easier to acheive
that.

Ask anyone who's bounced back and forth between two reds for
an afternoon. My best friend, when I was spraying her bike,
stood over me demanding "more red" and "more blue" until her
purple paint was "just right".. Sheeeesh, black at least has
no value judgement!

White, as any painter can tell you , is bloody hell because
it always has a slight tint of another color and it almost
_never_ matches. The guy who sells me paint gets $100 to do
a color match for appliances. That's very skilled and time
consuming work.

Black is just black. Hell, parts of my steel mudguards are
touched up with black magic marker. Looks fine.

Dear Andrew,

No, no! I meant it! I wasn't saying, "Yeah, really."
Sorry if this wasn't clear.

I was pleased to read your post because you were talking
about what happens after the painting--the touch-up, which
someone like Stoss decrying black NeXT boxes wouldn't think
of. You explained from a very practical and experienced point
of view that black works very well in the long run because
it touches up well.

I see elsewhere in this thread the same sort of thing in
reverse. You're anti-white-paint because it's hard to match
for touch-up, but another post suggests that it does well
for hiding imperfections (and also points out that bikes are
mostly heftier tubing, not flat sheet metal, so surface
imperfections are different).

See what I'm saying? The original painters may hate black
and love white, but the people who have to touch it up or
re-paint parts seem to love black and hate white. Again,
this is the kind of detail that experienced people like
you take for granted that everyone knows--and we don't,
so please, analyze the bejesus out of it, even when it
boils down to something painfully obvious to you.

In a way, it reminds me of a day when I happened to listen
to an internal medicine specialist and a neurosurgeon talking
about coumadin.

The internist wanted a program to track coumadin dosages,
since this blood-thinning drug is sensitive and has
to be watched carefully, but is quite helpful to lots
of patients at risk for clotting. (He's the guy who likes
white because it hides existing imperfections.)

The neurosurgeon was a bit depressed, having had to tell
a family that their mother was dead--she fell, hit her head,
and bled copiously inside her skull because she was on coumadin
and didn't clot worth a damn.

The goddamn stuff, after all, is literally used as rat poison,
to quote my unhappy childhood friend, who loathes the stuff like
many neurosurgeons. (He's the guy who prefers black because it's
easy to touch up and hates white because it's so hard to match.)

Honest, I wasn't putting Stoss up to contradict you, but
to illustrate how interesting the difference was between
black as an original paint and black as a paint to maintain.

Carl Fogel

Anyone ever use "The Color Factory" (Waretown, NJ)? They advertise in
VeloNews, and quote low prices in their ad.


"rosco" wrote in message
news
I'm considering having a frame repainted with 1 or 2 colors, and I'm
trying
to decide between the powder coat process vs. wet paint. If I powder
coat,
I'll most likely use Spectrum Powder Works (Colorado Springs), and if I
wet
paint, I'll probably use Hot Tubes (Worcester, MA). I've been lead to
believe by some that powder coat is a somewhat more durable finish, while
others have said the durability of the two is roughly the same. Since the
cost is about the same from these two refinishers, price isn't the
determining factor. Spectrum says they specialize in creating a powder
coat
with a wet paint "look". If this is true, the esthetics isn't an issue
either. What experience have you folks had with these two methods?

"rosco" writes:

I'm considering having a frame repainted with 1 or 2 colors, and I'm trying
to decide between the powder coat process vs. wet paint.

If you plan to ever sell the bike, or change the finish, powder coat
is not the best choice. It's extremely difficult to change a powder
coat finish.

- Don

I like black too. My CAAD 4 Cannondale is not glossy but flat black.
It touches up effortlessly and invisibly with Testor's flat black
model paint.

I use that very same paint on a glossy bike, and on sandblasted parts - hard
to beat it for a touch-up paint!

The Real Lee Casey

A Muzi writes:

My black bikes look much better over the long term than anything
else. Black is the only color that touches up acceptably.

In any case, black is always the, err, new black. It is guaranteed to
look smart, and won't go out of fashion.

--
(Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

;; I'd rather live in sybar-space

In a way, it reminds me of a day when I happened to listen
to an internal medicine specialist and a neurosurgeon talking
about coumadin.

The internist wanted a program to track coumadin dosages,
since this blood-thinning drug is sensitive and has
to be watched carefully, but is quite helpful to lots
of patients at risk for clotting. (He's the guy who likes
white because it hides existing imperfections.)

The neurosurgeon was a bit depressed, having had to tell
a family that their mother was dead--she fell, hit her head,
and bled copiously inside her skull because she was on coumadin
and didn't clot worth a damn.

The goddamn stuff, after all, is literally used as rat poison,
to quote my unhappy childhood friend, who loathes the stuff like
many neurosurgeons. (He's the guy who prefers black because it's
easy to touch up and hates white because it's so hard to match.)

Honest, I wasn't putting Stoss up to contradict you, but
to illustrate how interesting the difference was between
black as an original paint and black as a paint to maintain.

Carl Fogel

I'd just like to tell you that, with a combination of 24 letters and a
bit of punctuation, you have just written the strangest thing I have
ever read.

May God have mercy on your soul.