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Paint Vs Powder

  • Thread starter Thread starter JimmyR
  • Start date Start date
J

JimmyR

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When I first got my '82 GS1100G I went to a local bike mechanic place to pick their brains about a few things and get a new tyre. In the conversation the owner went on about how much he hated powder coat and said it had no place on a motorcycle. Seeing as I had used powdercoat extensively on my other bike and intended to use it on the "new" one I didn't press him on the matter!

So now, after weighting up the arguments very carefully and paying much attention to him, I have pretty much used powder for everything on this bike where you would normally use paint. Why would someone be so anti powdercoat? I love it on my bikes - it's very hardy, way cheaper than paint and when you use it like I do I think it looks fantastic - the texture black on the frames looks great.

Is there something I should know?
 
I'm not against powder coat, but since I wanted to preserve the VIN sticker on my bike I choose liquid paint for the frame. Liquid paint was cheaper too since my labor is free and the local powder coaters wanted $500+ to do my frame and various parts.
 
I have plenty of pics in my build thread: http://www.thegsresources.com/_forum/showthread.php?t=185709

And there will be plenty more next week once I have the tank back! One thing I have discovered is that powdercoating seems to be cheaper here (Western Australia) than in other parts of the world. And my taste is quite different from most guys. I LOVE the textured finishes and don't really get excited by high gloss paint. I do like a shiny tank (although the tanks on both my bikes are/will be textured) but I don't like lots of chrome or shiny frames.

Here is a detail showing the texture of the black on my frame:

rebuild003copy.jpg


And here is the rear fender. The tank will be finished like this too, a textured metallic grey:

tail005copy.jpg
 
I would have everything in powder coat had it not been cost prohibitive....500 just for the frame another 100 or so for the rims, and 1-2 hundred for all the other parts

a little too rich for my blood, especially if I am not doing a 10pt restoration...

so I took the cheap route and used spray paint....

the only other drawback to powder coat is trying to touch it up, very hard or impossible, depending on the finish...my spray paint is easy to fix up any scratch or chip or what ever....I just lose the durability you get with the powder coat.....

I like your choice of finish, it suits the bike and the scheme your going with....

Cheers

.
 
You guys are getting ripped off. ?80 here to do a frame. Take in one sh!tty old thing, they blast it and powdercoat it any colour you like and a week later you take in your folding stuff and get back something better than new. For another ?70 I can get all the other bits (stands, battery box, little brackets etc) done.
 
I've worked at three places that did in house powder coating in the last decade.
One place made industrial shelving units, one place made retail bakers racks for grocery stores, and one place made childrens playgrounds.

I would think that if powder coat is tough enough to stand up against industrial storage wear and tear, or being completely thrashed by children while living it's whole life outside, it's probably tough enough for our GSes.

On a side note, when I worked at the playground place I saw many frames and other non playground parts get hung and powder coated just from people walking in the front door and asking.
They were doing it pretty cheap too.
Car parts, bicycle frames, quad frames, snow mobile tunnels, etc.
If you ask smaller fab shops where they get their powder coating done you could probably find somewhere cheaper than what you have found so far.
Especially if you were just going with basic black or one of the colors that the company would be using anyway.
We would just hang the customer part along with all the in-house parts that were getting coated that same color anyways.



Tank
 
hampshirehog said:
You guys are getting ripped off. ?80 here to do a frame. Take in one sh!tty old thing, they blast it and powdercoat it any colour you like and a week later you take in your folding stuff and get back something better than new. For another ?70 I can get all the other bits (stands, battery box, little brackets etc) done.
Click to expand...

Can you PM me the details please HH? best price I've got so far is ?120 just for the frame, not even swing arm.
 
No disrespect to any of you guys but I'd be leery of cheap powder coat quotes and employ you to do some research on their actual process. There are a good many steps necessary to do the job properly, all of which take time (money) including: degreasing, sandblasting, phosphate etch, water rinse, heated drying, cooling, powder coat application, and baked curing. Just like any paint job, the prep work is critical for lasting performance. Regarding the powder itself, there are all different kinds, depending on desired characteristics, and price varies significantly too. For example, polyester powder coat is cheaper than urethane but isn't as durable; when I called around for price quotes everyone said urethane powder is an upcharge. The devil's in the details as always.
 
I think you are spot-on. The powder for the grey I am using is actually quite an expensive powder and apparently easy to make look bad. I always thought it was a one-coat deal. Nope. The place I use undercoat everything in a pale grey undercoat kinda powder then use the finish colour over that. The finish is beautiful.

Having said that, it is still a LOT cheaper than pro paint is around here. I did my own prep on my Harley tanks and fenders, which just meant sanding the bare metal to a fairly fine degree and then got them all done in texture black powder. It was around $200 for the lot versus $2000 for paint. Obviously I would have got paint a lot cheaper if I had done it but it is quite heard to get it to look good and I just wanted texture black powder anyway!
 
Nessism said:
No disrespect to any of you guys but I'd be leery of cheap powder coat quotes and employ you to do some research on their actual process. There are a good many steps necessary to do the job properly, all of which take time (money) including: degreasing, sandblasting, phosphate etch, water rinse, heated drying, cooling, powder coat application, and baked curing. Just like any paint job, the prep work is critical for lasting performance. Regarding the powder itself, there are all different kinds, depending on desired characteristics, and price varies significantly too. For example, polyester powder coat is cheaper than urethane but isn't as durable; when I called around for price quotes everyone said urethane powder is an upcharge. The devil's in the details as always.
Click to expand...

Absolutely Ed. But be careful what you ask for - there's Polyester Urethane and Acrylic Urethane, Polyester, Polyester triglycidyl isocyanurate (yes, I had to Google that one) and a few others. The key is finding guys with a good reputation for doing bikes. They know you're after tough, chip resistant, UV stable, good edge strength, high gloss etc.

Don't be taken in by all the mumbo jumbo and tech speak though. The job really doesn't take very long to do at all and although some of the compounds are more expensive than others the amount used on a bike is tiny. The difference in treatment is negligible cost to them as well.

The guys I use are excellent at plugging stuff off as well - I wouldn't trust anyone else to do an OIF Triumph.
 
Just thought I'd use this thread as an excuse to throw in a photo of the latest project just back from the powder coaters.

1970 Bultaco Sherpa T250 Model M49. First frame I have ever had done in a colour other than gloss black - this one is in Hot Silver (looks more silver in the flesh). I have broken my number one rule - 'all frames should be gloss black' - as this is as close to the original colour as we could match. I'm not sure if I like it or not - but she's a rare thing nowadays so I thought I had better keep it original looking.

frame1.jpg
 
Hampshire Hog that is stunning. I would love to see the whole bike when it's done.
 
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