Manon: I have always wanted to spray paint my own bike. It's a great way of personalizing it and
bringing it some new life, but I've always been a bit scared. It's a big job, spray painting a bike,
but the over lockdown, you guys have submitted some great upgrades of bikes you've sprayed.
You've inspired me so I'm going to give it a go. [music]
I've never done this before. I'm going to need some professional guidance, and who better
than Ali and Bex from Fatcreations. Now, you might already follow them on Instagram.
It's definitely one of my favorite Instagram accounts to follow. Let's go meet them in their
workshop. I think I'm in the right place. Look how beautiful these are. [knocks] Hi.
Ali: Hello. Manon: Thanks for having us.
Ali: That's all right. You're very welcome. Manon: Cool.
Ali: I guess we better show you around. Manon: Ali and Bex's workshop is a treasure
trove of stunning custom frames. As you know, I'm doing a DIY spray paint on one of my old bikes and
obviously, I have to do it myself, and DIY I won't have any of these fancy gadgets. I
was just wondering if you have any tips for me on how to make it maybe half as good as your bikes.
Ali: Yes, of course. What frame is it? Let's have a look, see what you've got.
Manon: This is the bike I want to transform. Where do I start? I'm guessing I'm going to
need to sand it all down, get the paint off. Ali: If you've got a steel or an aluminum
frame like this and it's not corroded, find a local blaster. They use fine sand on it
so it won't damage the aluminum too much. It will literally just give you the perfect key
for the paint to stick on. Trust me, if you've ever spent a day
trying to get the paint off a bike, the cost of £30 to £35 to get this looking like
raw out of the factory is a cost you'll be well happy you've spent.
There's a few things we need to do though. When you blast something, the paint will
come off in a fairly uniform manner, but if there's any of these stickers on here,
any of these quite thick stickers, the blast doesn't go through it very well. This absorbs
the energy of the fine particles. What you end up with, it will go in the end, but you'll end
up with a ridge around here where this part of the aluminum is protruded. What we'll do is we'll
scrape off any of these surface stickers before we take it down to the blaster, and you'll be left
with a much smoother finish when you get it back. Manon: Cool. As my forks did have carbon in them,
I wasn't able to get them blasted so going to have to sand them down myself. Ali would normally strip
it down to bare carbon, but for this project, it's going to be fine just to take the shine and the
logos off just to smooth it down, and then we're going to go over it with a 320 before priming.
After prep, the frame was ready to be blasted.
We're here at Penfold Metallising Company where I'm going to get my frame sandblasted, ready to
be painted. Let's go find Jed and see what the sandblasting is all about. Here's my lovely frame.
[music] The frame all
blasted down. That took about 15 minutes and a lot better job than I did in sanding it myself.
I'm really happy I got that done. Now it's time for the fun part. The frame is all prepped. It's
now time for the hard bit, choosing the color because all I know is I want something a little
bit different, a little bit sparkly maybe. Ali: Okay. I've got some colors out. Have a
look and see what you think. Manon:
Some of them are changing and not quite chromy. Is that going to be possible with an aerosol?
Ali: These two you can do both of those with an aerosol. That's not a problem.
Manon: Take those two out down to these two. Ali: The hard decision. This is a two-color
change. A lot of bike manufacturers are using this paint now. This is a switch from blue to purple,
whereas this has five color tones to it. This is a bit more spectacular than this.
Manon: I think I'm going towards this one. I think I'm going to go to this one. I really
like that one. I've chosen my color, but what am I going to need to make this happen?
Ali: For around the £100 mark, you can get everything you need. First thing you need is
a primer. You can get all of this in aerosol form. Then with this color, you have to paint
the bike black first. This color relies on a nice black base coat. You have black and then this
color itself is Chromacoat green. That goes over the base black coat and gives you that effect.
Then, what I would recommend is a 2K clearcoat. It's a lacquer but this is 2K.
You mix two different chemicals together. It's an epoxy-type lacquer. The only thing with a 2K
lacquer is it does have some nasty ingredients and so you really have to wear a mask, at least a good
charcoal mask, and do it outside. You could do it in a garage, but unless you've got a good fan
sucking out the fumes, it's not worth it. Wait for the right day, do it outside in a well-ventilated
area. You can get 1K lacquer. The health risks are much lower with that. Nothing to worry about
really, but for longevity, 2K is the way to go. While you're here, we'll get Becky to show you how
to paint and it will give you some idea of what to expect when you use the aerosols. It won't be
exactly the same but it'll give you a good idea. Manon: That'll be amazing, please. I've never
really sprayed anything with aerosol before so it'd be interesting.
[music] To avoid
getting primer in areas that we don't we want to mask it up. I've got some masking
tape here and I'm going to do the head tube, seat tube, and the bottom bracket. We've got
some bungs in the bottom bracket but you can mask that up if you don't have bungs.
Becky: When it comes to painting your frame, what you want to do
with a gun as well as with an aerosol can is, when you come to do it you have in your
mind what bits you're going to paint first. We always come off the end unless you have good
trigger control which is very difficult with an aerosol can. I would suggest you come right off
the end so then you don't get a concentrated bit of paint which could then cause a run.
As we're still working with a 2K primer today, I would suggest you wear this mask. It's called an
air feed and it will feed you fresh air rather than breathing in the vapor and getting that
stuff in your lungs. It's not very nice. Manon: [laughs] I started by practicing on
some paper to really get the feel for it. It's now time for the real thing. I'm going to try priming
my forks. Let's go. [chuckles] Becky: Okay. Turn them again,
and again. Manon:
After the forks were done with no major error,
I moved on to the frame doing two coats of primer on each.
That's my bike all primed and ready for the next stage. Thank you so much, guys, for helping me out
today and having us in your amazing workshop. Ali: You're very welcome.
Manon: Got any more tips? Ali: [chuckles] Be patient.
Manon: Yes. Definitely. Becky: Patience is a huge thing
and well done. Finally, [unintelligible 00:08:18] Manon: That's probably same for the paint.
Becky: Good luck [crosstalk] Manon: Thank you very much.
I'm now left to my own devices. I'm going to start off by wet-sanding the frame down with
600 grit sandpaper, some warm soapy water. I'm just going to go all over
the frame and forks just to get rid of any imperfections but it's pretty perfect anyway.
[music] You're not looking to do anything crazy
with this, just focus on getting a nice smooth surface and if there's any little bumps from
the dry primer, just focus on those. I've sanded the frame all down and as you can see, there's
quite a lot of paint residue left on the frame, so I'm going to need to wipe that off. First off,
I'm going to just have some plain water and a cloth and wipe it all down. Then after that, I'm
going in with this pre-paint wipe just to get it extra clean, and then it's time for the base coat.
Ali also gave me these stickers and these stickers are going to go on the head tube,
the bottom bracket, on the seat stays, on the brake caliper, and some on the forks as well,
just to go everywhere that I don't want to get any paint. Stickers are all on and it's
ready for the base black coat. When you're using aerosols like this is quite important to wear a
mask. I've got a very trendy mask here. Once I get the mask on, you won't really be able to hear me.
I'm just going to crack on. Wish me luck and hopefully, I won't mess it up.
[music] The base code is all done. I think I've managed to get it pretty much everyone
on the frame. Now we're just going to take it inside because it is quite cold outside,
so a little bit warmer for it to dry. After yesterday's first base black coat,
I did a second coat and then I brought it inside to the warmth and to let it dry overnight and it's
come out pretty nicely. I'm pretty happy with that. Today I'm going to go in with a pre-paint
wipe, give a wipe over, and then I'm going to stick these stencils on that Bex of Fatcreations
kindly made me. I've got some Welsh Dragons and my initials. I'm Welsh. I'm going to stick two on the
forks and then two on the seat tube and then maybe my initials on the downtube. I'm not
quite sure. I haven't made my mind up yet but hopefully, I will in a minute. Let's get to it.
[music] My stickers are on. I've just
bought it outside my little DIY paint booth and now it's time for the main attraction, the color.
Quite nervous for this but we'll see. Oh my God. Look at it. Oh, beautiful. Oh my god. I love it.
This is exactly the color I wanted.
I've put two coats of color onto the bike now and let it dry for around 20 minutes and it is looking
fabulous. Now, for the very tricky part of trying to take the stickers off without
chipping or damaging the frame. I've got this tiny little tool that I'm
just going to nip the sticker with and then hopefully it'll peel off.
The stickers are off. The paint is dry and it is now time for the clear coat.
This is actually the hardest part, Ali said, so hopefully, I won't mess this up but I am so,
so, so happy with it. It looks very beautiful I have to say.
It is looking beautiful, swanky. It looks delicious. Delicious.
That's three coats done. Now I'm going to take it inside to dry for
about 24 hours. Here it is. [music]
Pretty impressive, I do have to say so myself. At the start of this custom paint project,
I never thought I'd be left with something like this, but a massive thank you to Bex and Ali
for chatting me through it. There was quite a few phone calls when I was painting it myself
just to double-check I was doing it correctly. It took me around three days to do but that wasn't
a full three days of work. There was a lot of waiting around, waiting for the paint to dry.
Altogether, I think all the aerosols cost me around £80 pounds, so not too expensive.
If you do have an old frame lying around, I would definitely recommend
doing a little custom paint job on it because it's a very enjoyable thing to do.
If you do want some tips from the experts themselves and not this amateur, then head
over to Bex and Ali's YouTube channel. They've just set up Fatcreations Custom Paint where they
go into a lot more detail about custom paint. If you did enjoy this video and you do like my bike,
then please give this video a big thumbs up and let me know what you thought of it in
the comment section below. [00:13:46] [END OF AUDIO]