Quick question: Spray.bike, is it worth it??

[Martini-night]

Hi guys,I've got an old steel frame here to paint,gonna use spray.bike for the first time.
Them youtube videos are a load of shite,they just want you to buy the product!!
so i just wanna hear some real feedback of real people who used it before.
Is it durable?
Thanks in advance

 

[DrDaveTampa]

No it's not at all durable. It's super easy to get a decent cosmetic result if you're looking for a matte finish, but enamel it ain't

Prep is simple, just sand and spray... you don't want to take it down to bare metal, it adheres best to old paint ... it's also super easy to touch up when you get a chip, just sand and spray. But you will get chips.

Not totally clear to me how it differs from any other acrylic spray paint.

I'm kind of digging acrylic for art bikes, I'll be sticking with spray.bike for my next project, which will involve a lot of hand drawn graphics. It has its advantages there. For a single color, I dunno man. If the bike needs a lot of prep -- if you're even thinking about blasting, for example -- powdercoat isn't *that* much more expensive, looks fabulous and can take a beating

I hear what you're saying about the vids, but there really isn't that much to it... Here's some tips:
-- For prep, get some fine sandpaper, wet-sand those chips. Feather any paint edges, it doesn't need to look good, but it needs to be smooth to touch. I learned the hard way, their spray on "putty" doesn't make up for lack of prep... it's easy but not *that* easy
-- pay attention to recommended spray distance, they aren't kidding about that
-- polish with parchment paper about a half hour after spraying -- polish the crap out of it, it helps
-- let it cure before banging around with it, they aren't kidding about that either
-- if you make a mistake, don't sweat it... just wait 30 minutes, wet sand, and squirt it again


The paint is easy, just spray it... the clear coat requires a bit more care, but not much more. Wet sanding takes care of any goofups easily enough. The bike in the pic had three coats of clear, then three more with sanding in between ... I wasn't slathering it on tho, basically just used the whole can. It came out shiny-ish, I guess...

It was kinda cool that I could line the lugs relatively painlessly with an extra fine tip acrylic pen I got off Amazon ... that there's the advantage of acrylic in my mind ...

 

[spacehopper]

no different in terms of durability to any other 'normal' spray paints ive used..

if you want durable.. get a local powder coating firm to do it and save yourself all the horrendously time consuming prep work..

 

[novocaine]

having just sprayed a frame with Mastons one I'd say leave the spray on alone and use this instead. was genuinely impressed by it and their nozzle design, was painted in a day from bare frame through prime to top coat, wet sanded after 24 hours and looks belting.

the "putty" is just high build primer, for aluminium you shoot it over an etch prime.
spray on is an acetone solvent based pigment with a matting agent (xylene).

I don't think it's any easier than a normal paint and as indicated, not really any more robust.

I've also got a half can of black and 1/4 can of pink left from 3 coats of the frame, so that's a winner.

 

[Thame Game]

Prep is everything on a bike spray. If you're going bare metal, an etch primer is essential to guarantee good adhesion for the next coat of a colour matched primer, e.g White primer for Yellow, or Grey primer for blues & blacks.
Totally agree with above advice, go light with coats and good layering of top clear coat.
Buy a Tack Cloth, @£3, this will remove dust particles in between coats that will potentially ruin the finish.
The rest is on the back of the can.

 

[Nabeaquam]

It’s not cheap to use rattle cans to spray a bike. Prep takes forever. Powder coating is cheaper and faster. Here, $100 for a frame and fork powder coated. If you just want paint to cover up rust and you’re building a maggot, the spray cans are good. You can spray the whole bike without disassembly if all you want is to cover rust, or use canned paint and a broom. Rattle can paint chipps off with your finger nail. Unless it’s 2K. Add up the cost of stripper, stripper wash, many grades of sand paper, solvent wash, rust remover, rust neutralizer, primer, color coat and maybe clear. It adds up to more than powder and isn’t as nice. For a professional quality job you need a paint booth so dust and aerosolized over spray doesn’t settle on your paint. You need a furnace filter intake and an exhaust fan to get a real professional job. High quality automotive paint can be purchased in small amounts from people that sell paint for motorcycles. Her is my home built booth. The bike is a vintage Somex I painted pearl white over candy. You have to use a low volume, low pressure spray gun, not a high vol, low pressure gun. Those are for cars and make too much mist for a small booth to clear.
Blower with removed overspray killing my wife’s flowers.


Heater for cold mornings

furnace dust filter, upprt right

 

[novocaine]

It’s not cheap to use rattle cans to spray a bike. Prep takes forever. Powder coating is cheaper and faster. Here, $100 for a frame and fork powder coated. If you just want paint to cover up rust and you’re building a maggot, the spray cans are good. You can spray the whole bike without disassembly if all you want is to cover rust, or use canned paint and a broom. Rattle can paint chipps off with your finger nail. Unless it’s 2K. Add up the cost of stripper, stripper wash, many grades of sand paper, solvent wash, rust remover, rust neutralizer, primer, color coat and maybe clear. It adds up to more than powder and isn’t as nice. For a professional quality job you need a paint booth so dust and aerosolized over spray doesn’t settle on your paint. You need a furnace filter intake and an exhaust fan to get a real professional job. High quality automotive paint can be purchased in small amounts from people that sell paint for motorcycles. Her is my home built booth. The bike is a vintage Somex I painted pearl white over candy red.

Sorry but i have to disagree with you a little bit there. That gt up there cost 38 quid and that was only because I wanted 2 colours. This includes stripper, media for blasting, 400,800,100,1200 grit wet and dry but excludes the decals which I cut from vinyl I had in and a small amount of g4 rubbing compound for final polish.

It hasn't chipped off.

A bad paint job is a bad paint job no matter who does it, but done right a rattle can does just fine, it's all in the prep and the right materials which includes the correct primer.

Powder coat here is 120 to 180 quid depending on colour and prep time. Powder coat doesn't flex and is brittle if to thick ( bad jobs exist the same as spraying).

Yes a 2k spray job is better, but you aren't doing that at home either.

If you have the money, Powder it, if you don't have the money but have the time a rattle job is more than acheiveable. Prep is king.

 

[Imlach]

Spray.bike is a scam being pushed by the youtubers who are sponsored. It's similar to Montana Gold except even Montana is better

 

[Imlach]

And yes I have used spray.bike and wasted my money on plenty of cans, even imported from other eu destinations during covid, and it was as much of a letdown as a trip to the whorehouse only to realise all of the girls had dicks

 

[Nabeaquam]

Sorry but i have to disagree with you a little bit there. That gt up there cost 38 quid and that was only because I wanted 2 colours. This includes stripper, media for blasting, 400,800,100,1200 grit wet and dry but excludes the decals which I cut from vinyl I had in and a small amount of g4 rubbing compound for final polish.

It hasn't chipped off.

A bad paint job is a bad paint job no matter who does it, but done right a rattle can does just fine, it's all in the prep and the right materials which includes the correct primer.

Powder coat here is 120 to 180 quid depending on colour and prep time. Powder coat doesn't flex and is brittle if to thick ( bad jobs exist the same as spraying).

Yes a 2k spray job is better, but you aren't doing that at home either.

If you have the money, Powder it, if you don't have the money but have the time a rattle job is more than acheiveable. Prep is king.

The spray booth and Somex I showed above was painted with 2k paint. Two part Epoxy primer, two part red candy, two part pearl and two part clear. Very fine wet sanding between each. If I do this again using 2k I’ll get an outside + pressure air hood. There are some under $60. It might cause turbulence in the booth, blowing overspray around but I’m using a commercial floor drying blower. That should remove any additional overspray. I also have an infrared heater on a rock in one of the photos. When the temp is optimal for my dryer I turn it off and spray.