Removal of factory paint from old Aluminium mountain bike

[Barracuda]

Anyone got any tried and tested best practices ?

 

[Fiemme]

Anyone got any tried and tested best practices ?

Soda Blasting. They use baking soda instead of sand or beads. Can also be used on Carbon. Its not as agressive as sand or bead blasting.
Just make sure you rinse down well once the paint is removed. As wet Baking soda may etch into the aluminium if left for long periods.

 

[alitogata]

Water blasting. It removes any kind of paint with high pressure water jets and leaves intact any kind of material. Very safe for aluminum as this metal has no problem with water.

 

[messycolin]

Both mentioned methods need a pro/blasting cabinet. It ain't something you will be doing at home.

This means we are talking about paying someone. Which method your local paintshop uses is irrelevent really. Your choice will be what he uses. Any of the blasting media is ok...it is the user that will determine if he does a good job...or ruins your frame.

Some paint shops won't strip your alloy bike cos it may contaminate their blastmedia for when they go back to blasting steel for example. Likewise they shouldn't use the same grit they blast steel with on your bike.

You could strip it at home with nitromors...if this is still available in your country. Depending on your original paint job some mor environmental/user friendly strippers may work. You can enquire about people who chemically strip doors/gates etc. they can dunk your frame in bath. Try to find someone who has a solvent vapour degreaser bath. These are ace for stripping and cleaning frame...not sure if there are mnay still around though.

Ps i am a painter bike rider

Pps why bother stripping it? The price of a respray/blast will shock you i imagine.

 

[Barracuda]

Both mentioned methods need a pro/blasting cabinet. It ain't something you will be doing at home.

This means we are talking about paying someone. Which method your local paintshop uses is irrelevent really. Your choice will be what he uses. Any of the blasting media is ok...it is the user that will determine if he does a good job...or ruins your frame.

Some paint shops won't strip your alloy bike cos it may contaminate their blastmedia for when they go back to blasting steel for example. Likewise they shouldn't use the same grit they blast steel with on your bike.

You could strip it at home with nitromors...if this is still available in your country. Depending on your original paint job some mor environmental/user friendly strippers may work. You can enquire about people who chemically strip doors/gates etc. they can dunk your frame in bath. Try to find someone who has a solvent vapour degreaser bath. These are ace for stripping and cleaning frame...not sure if there are mnay still around though.

Ps i am a painter bike rider

Pps why bother stripping it? The price of a respray/blast will shock you i imagine.

Aiming to do at home ....... just a second bike to chuck panniers on etc and go to shops on ... so would spray at home also ....... any suggestions on retail available paint removers ?

 

[dsut4392]

Both mentioned methods need a pro/blasting cabinet. It ain't something you will be doing at home.

Pps why bother stripping it? The price of a respray/blast will shock you i imagine.

I agree - it would have to be a pretty special old frame to make this worthwhile, museum or vanity project perhaps? If it's a bike you're planning to ride, a pretty paint job won't make up for dodgy old-school geometry...

 

[dsut4392]

Aiming to do at home ....... just a second bike to chuck panniers on etc and go to shops on ... so would spray at home also ....... any suggestions on retail available paint removers ?

Ah, I see. If it's just a beater you want to tidy up a little, don't bother with a full strip - use a regular fine grit sandpaper to smooth the edges of any serious paint chips, then just spray over the top of the old paint.

Although IMO the worse a beater bike looks the more likely it will still be leaning on the wall when you come out of the shop!

 

[Barracuda]

Ah, I see. If it's just a beater you want to tidy up a little, don't bother with a full strip - use a regular fine grit sandpaper to smooth the edges of any serious paint chips, then just spray over the top of the old paint.

Although IMO the worse a beater bike looks the more likely it will still be leaning on the wall when you come out of the shop!

Sounds like the option ..... appears to be getting out of hand for its intended use, better rein it in now before it ends up costing more than a Moots !!

 

[hiero2]

I'll add my .02 to say stripping and recoating is a pain and expensive. I've done both - at home and pro blasting for older steel frames. The blasting process needs a pro - and it costs - and it is easy for a less-skilled pro to not do a good job. Even getting a cheap pro paint job is a cost. I had mine powder-coated, as I wanted to use it as a commuter. So, after being on the road a month, a plastic bag got blown into the rear derailleur, the derailleur got pulled into the spokes, and bam, I went down. AND, the dropout broke. It was a Campy dropout - this was a pretty nice 531 frame - but it WAS also old. So, that nice powder coat got messed up when I had to get new dropouts braized in.

At home: if you want to try stripping, maybe try one of the newer limonene (citrus) based strippers. No nasty hydrocarbon fumes. I'm not sure how well it would work on an OEM lacquer finish - but it isn't expensive. They work well on housepaint stuff, I use them at home for my diy work on my house.

I had another old steel frame I redid some years ago, and as it was a 2nd level quality to begin with, I just used some sandpaper to rough the surface and bought cans of spray paint. That was about 15 years ago, and that paint is still ok.