Going with clear powder is fine so long as you understand that you will either paint the bike again in the future, or accept that it *will* rust and that you *will* see it.
I think it is great option if you need a cheaper paint job and don’t want to risk filleting out crisp lugwork. Some powder coaters can apply a nice thin layer of color powder but it is a gamble and something you should definitely discuss with a powder coater before hand. Most things that are powdered do not require the level of detail or quality one expects in a bicycle paint job. I had a Serotta that was stripped of its paint, had its front derailleur shifter braze-ons ground off to be run as a 1X. This bike was scotchbrighted and then had the Serotta “decals” sandblasted in before powdering. Looked cool, didn’t last. Areas where the steel grew rust spiders would flake off. <https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-hxbGhWYxhfc/VvlIUgdcCXI/AAAAAAAAAE8/5IQTQWOXmV8i8r2pLu0Ja-rn3hOolj6vw/s1600/DSCF3545.jpg> <https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-sP7GZTAaM6o/VvlIYIqxQNI/AAAAAAAAAFA/lm1jpwZzi6A8E0yuth5RgS7-VEPF2PSrQ/s1600/DSCF3573.jpg> I have a simpleone that had been stripped to add some braze-ons and needed to be coated. i blasted it before powder because i’ve been told that the tooth which the blasting applies is what insures that the paint adheres. i’ve been riding it for 2 years in Rhode Island and it looks the same as the day i picked it up from the powder coater. <https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-DsUms4VB04w/VvlLHdnELGI/AAAAAAAAAFQ/7D3empp_Jmkciw_9yV28k-UJNy3CoBhfg/s1600/DSCF7395.jpg> <https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-ka8aDt2_ovU/VvlLKsVgIgI/AAAAAAAAAFU/rlljVzr15jYT33bcM8oSuCgQs1Crvav3A/s1600/DSCF7398.jpg> I agree that the blasted + powder combo looks boring and depending on the frame there can be varying qualities of brazing that you may or may not want to see all the time. It also mostly looks like your bike is just painted pewter, and there are plenty of nice pewterish grey sparkly paint options out there to choose from which will give you a longer lasting, better looking, and more predictable paint job. any scuffs in clear powder look completely wild through polarized sunglasses. - S. Greco On Friday, March 18, 2016 at 12:21:12 PM UTC-4, Grant @ Rivendell wrote: > > I am not fluent here and tried to respond to other comments about it, then > gave up and thought I could do it here & this way...wondering all the while > whether this is what "thread thwacking" is. Anyway, this isn't the last > word on it, just our experience and observations. > > It looks best and the way you want it to look if the frame is not blasted > after building. Then you get the fire marks and general variegation that > gets the blood flowing. If the frame is blasted after building and you > clear coat over that, it looks like boring metallic gray with some > brass-colored pinstriping (if lugs). Nobody will say *hey, cool;* they'll > just think, *hey, kinda boring*. > > Clear coat is porous, which means water gets thru it and causes rust. We > had a local powder coater assure us that it had an ultranew and > supereffective way to protect the metal from rust, but it didn't work. > Inland bikes, no big problem, but if you live in a sugar shack on > Chesapeake Bay, it won't last. > > Powder coating, wet painting, no matter. Powder coating isn't the > "bulletproof, no-nonsense, thanks for not making me have to think about > anything" solution it is sometimes portrayed as. It was developed for thick > steel tractors, as a durable, chip-resistant layer. The proble, besides > being pourous, is that with powder there is no primer to help fight rust > and protect the metal when it does chip. And powder coatings tends to have > more micro-cracks than wet paint. When the paint is opaque, it's easy to > assume all's well underneath, but when it's clear, you can actually see > what's happening. > > If clear-coating was a GREAT idea, we'd offer it. It's used on show bikes > sometimes as a novelty and to show how great the metal looks, but if the > air is humid or salty or it rains a lot or something like that, it's not > fantastic...in our experience here, at least. > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
