Building my Son his first proper bike for his 13th birthday! Custom paint job incoming…

[kyle888]

So my son has at last shown an interest in bikes and learning to wheelie because of friends of his being into it and learning tricks.
I bowed to the mtb gods as before this he had shown little interest in learning bike control and tricks. My teenage years were spent riding trials and learning other bike tricks like wheelies and had always wanted to teach him.

He asked for a new bike for his 13th birthday so rather than spend 300 to 400 on a Carrera from Halfords that wouldn’t be that good. I have decided to build him his first proper mtb sourcing quality second hand parts and new parts where necessary.

I work as a car spray painter so I am also going to do a custom paint job on the frame.

To kick it off I purchased a Ragley Piglet Frame from Scant on this site. Thanks to him as it’s in good nick and at a good price!


I took the frame to work where I sanded it back and prepared it for its new custom paint job.

More to follow
Thanks Kyle

 

[eric_james]

replying to see updates

 

[kyle888]

In primer before base coat.

 

[Fatguyonabike]

Amazing set up! Any chance you have some advice for those of us lacking your set up, and more importantly, your experience to maximize our painting results? Anything is greatly appreciated!

 

[kyle888]

Amazing set up! Any chance you have some advice for those of us lacking your set up, and more importantly, your experience to maximize our painting results? Anything is greatly appreciated!

Firstly I would say bike frames are hard to paint as they have so many angles you need to paint the tubes from. So if you can get some practice on other simpler items that would be better.
The better your preparation is the better your results will be. You can’t cover bad prep with a good paint job.
When you are painting don’t do it when it is too cold or too hot. Too cold and you will get runs in your paint, too hot and your finish will be dry and peely if you don’t paint it quick enough.
If you have any questions I’ll try to answer.

Thanks Kyle

 

[kyle888]

So when I had previously mentioned to my son if he could choose the colour for a bike what would he choose he said like a galaxy colour. In which he means like the galaxy Fortnite character skins.
So after some looking around online and at some colours I decided on a fade on the tubes from a metallic Pearl blue on the main parts and tops of the tubes with a burgundy red Pearl along the bottoms of the tubes.
So I had two spray guns set up with a colour in each and tried to see what I could do.
Here are some pictures of it in the booth after the clear coat went on. It’s hard to capture the colours on camera but the close ups with the flash on show it quite well.
Just need to scotch it all down again apply the new decals and then clear coat agian.

Let me know what you think
Cheers Kyle

 

[kyle888]

 

[Fatguyonabike]

That is an amazing paint job. I'll be sure to do all of the prep work, but I'm quite certain my finished product wont come close to this!

 

[kyle888]

Thanks appreciate the kind words. I spent about 3.5 hours on it in total roughly with about 30 to 40 mins actually painting it.

Kyle

 

[Madmax1993]

That'll be a fantastic gift, with way more personality than a new bike off the shelf. I love the ethos of including him in the build, he'll be even more chuffed to own it and ride it because of this. I'd definitely invest in a damn good lock though, and see that he uses it.