rust and paint, recommendations?

I am thinking of painting the frame of my bike as it has a surprising amount of small rust speckles.

However last year I did a trailer and it was a disaster! I had stripped it back (sanded and wirebrushed) to bare metal where rusty, cleaned and sanded everywhere else, then I bought paint, a three paint system of rust proofer, undercoat and topcoat. Well despite being the same brand and very clean bits of it bubbled so I sanded them back again and re-primed and topcoated.

I also tried chassis/underbody matt black over a proprietary rust proofer on a separate area, the towbar. This was OK for a few months but rust is showing through again on all areas!

So what is the best rust-proofing and top-coating system you guys use? I don't have a sprayer and can't afford sandblasting or hot gal or such fancy stuff. I guess therefore I prefer a brush on method. I would prefer a matt black.

Get two cans of spray-on truck bed liner. Matte black. Waterproof. Bonds to even a lightly sanded metal. Dries in minutes. Easy to respray/patch if you go down. May even absorb vibrations.

Depending on how much area you need to cover, you could easily do three coats in one hour and never have to worry about it again!

I know it may sound stupid but I really think it's a great idea. Saw a guy coat his funktup crash bars (on a DL650) with it once and I was sold.

CC

I know a guy in a KLR forum in Los Angeles who swears by black bedliner for painting plastics too, though he says prep is crucial. recent threads have suggested that bedliner is being made in other colors because of its strength and durability.

jkp

Thanks guys, will go to the shops on the weekend and try and find some at a reasonable price.

+ 3 to bedliner, You can get it @ wal-mart for cheap in aerosol cans or a bucket of brush on + roller

there's a brand called speedliner 1000 that comes in 20 colors, so you are not limited to black. bedliner is a vinyl coating that leaves a highly textured surface and is practically bulletproof. the look is not for everyone, but I know I will use it for my battered old KLR650 in California once I've found replacements for some of the plastics.

http://www.speedliner.com/colors

jkp

Corrosion prevention/maintenance: ACF-50. Frame paint: Hammerite (smooth, matt, hammer finshes, but not much choice on colours!)

All are good ideas. Let us know how it turns out!

CC

not sure if this link is still available, and being facebook it's a pain in the arsch for me to test from here, but this should take you to images of a "bedliner black" KLR650 in Los Angeles owned by Jeff Khoury, who posts in yahoo group DSN_KLR650.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pi...&id=1121850447

obviously we are talking about the whole bike, not just the frame.

opinions?

I have recently repainted all the ferrous bits on my bike, and used a mixture of Hammerite and wrought iron gate paint, the latter was cheaper, and seems to be a tougher finish.

As to rusting, I recently abraded back the paint to bare metal and found much of the metal is pitted and in the pits rust, so despite my efforts, it is going to rust again, but at least I have slowed it down and it looks better.

If all of the bike is made from silmilarly pitted metal, then I would have thought the only way rust could be prevented, was if the bike was stripped bare, and treated with a rust converter before being sealed and painted, a mammoth job, is it really worth it.

Lots of good ideas there, thanks everyone. I shall have to get some bedliner and try it, never used it and it looks like fun. The main problem is the rust conversion I think, I have used a couple of brands and both let rust through on well prepared bare metal after less than a year so I don't know why. I spent literally ten hours or more on sanding and brushing the trailer and more and was very disappointed. Not jut in nooks and crannies, on flat sections and also the top coat flaked off it in places without rust, something incompatible or else just harsh Aussie sun and vibrations from dirt roads?
The bike has to last me until lights out, maybe ten years if I am lucky but probably only 30,000 km so probably worth the effort. Shall get some small pots and experiment!
I had forgotten about hammerite - I painted a metal trunk in it thirty years ago and apart from a few small chips it has survived the trip to Aus and daily usage. However it is indoors.

Jape, as with any paint product, pay close attention to the coat times. Some say to put on light coats with a specific flash time between. Heat and humidity are other things to be aware of especially where you live. Too much of either really effect when and how many coats of paint are needed. If it's too hot and the paint too thick, it's sure to bubble. Higher humidity causes bad things to happen as the paint gets contaminated with moisture and you are trying to get two different solvents to escape the paint. Check the label for the best temp and humidity. I was never one to use a primer too often but swear by them now. They really do go a long way in helping seal everything up so that your top coat lasts.

As with most things in life, patience is the key, grasshopper.

Thanks David as always - i agree as patience is not my strongest suite but I must say I did everything right with that trailer according to instructions! Not too hot, nor humid, hours of hard work on the sanding and wire-brushing. The three-step brand included a rust-proofer, a good primer and a top coat yet the rust is come through, the other areas (where I tried a different rust-proofer, primer and a different top coat) the rust is OK but the top coat has flaked off the primer. So I was pretty pissed off, enough to drive into the auto-suppliers where I got it all and show the lads. They didn't have any real idea of what could have happened but say I probably put the rust-proofer on too thick ...
This paint isn't cheap, cost me over a hundred bucks to do it. Hence this thread! Can't get redlead or the other red primers any more over here, they used to work ownders.
The bedliner sounds good but is a bit expensive for now at nearly $80 a liter locally (small town prices), I might let it all go through this winter coming now and have a good go in the spring. or just fish-oil it all and sod the looks!
I have definitely decided this weekend to be an outlaw unlicensed biker as my back is too bad to take the test on time and the Authorities have decided I cannot get any extension for injury, have to re-sit from the beginning 100 km away twice over three months and pay top dollar for that too - means another $500 + expenses, so I will not be riding as much as I had intended. Fuckem. The bike will be in the spare bedroom and I will be watching MX dvds instead of riding off on it to archery competitions, another dream falls ... turning into quite a grumpy bastard lately with this crap, anyway I will ride when I want where I want and take my chances but I will not push it and expose myself to unecessary risk. I should get a Harley and colours and a .357 magnum instead of a chinabike if I am going this route!:lol8: Now where did I leave that crystal meth and the rum bottle?

I'm in Shanghai so writing a bit out of school, but google shows a number of rattlecan bedliners in the neighborhood of US$12 a can or less. Common brands at this price include Plasti-Kote and Dupli-Color. There's a U-POL "tintable" kit for $112 that includes enough base and topcoat (4l of each) for a whole truckbed. At AutoZone, a US chain, a quart of Herculiner is $30. I reckon the stuff you've found at $80 a liter in your community is premium stuff, but is it all that's available?

I'd hate to think that getting sh*t done is as hard in Australia as it is here in China, but, hey, misery loves company. Hang in there.

Hi mate, it is just that transport costs this year or two have increased everything by a good few percent, and if you are outside of main capital cities then they have expensive price bands for 'country' areas where, especially in small towns these days, competition has died as only one franchise usually survives. But it isn't all bad, another hundred km (in my case more for most) and you get all the discount stores and competition. Usually you can find and order something onlne as long as you are careful of shipping costs. Australia has a tenth of the population of USA and a fraction of China but still a huge landmass and suffers from that. I have noticed that the appreciable savings you could once get from large chain warehouse type stores has got smaller as they have smashed much competition out of the way. Most poor folk like me save up, write lists and take a trip to a city every few months for all the hobby and pastime gear, hardware, electrical goods, even much foodstuff and essentials. The savings cover the fuel if you get enough gear! I haven't looked on Ebay yet, I always check out locally first because I know if we don't do that then we lose all the shops. Strangely though, most stuff locally takes three times as long if not in stock and costs more than much you get online even from abroad.
Getting off the topic slightly (but hey it is my thread and I always ramble) for example I can purchase exactly the same archery gear, same brand quality and so on, abroad, ship it here and save often 20% to 50% and also get it much, much faster. This seems to apply to all sorts of stuff. Someone is making a good buck but killing the local towns and country markets, it isn't the transport guys I know a few and they are struggling.
I will probably save up and get the good gear such as 'speedliner' in the end - but as usual the suppliers and dealers haven't answered any emails yet. So many people just don't seem to care about business practices either in quality of goods supplied, speed of delivery, customer response and back up. It took seventeen phone calls, a couple of faxes and a few emails to get a non-functioning battery replaced on the Kinlon after just a week of owning it! And two replacements were fucked as well so I gave up and paid for an expensive local one, yup, $120 sod it.
Good day for grumbling! I need to get out on the 'bike and stop complaining.