Dent repairs and powdercoating

[BG]

I bought a Diamond Back Axis frame off here a while back and have finally gotten around to doing some work on it - starting with a repaint.

It had a small dent under the top tube from a tool being dropped on it (bummer) so I sanded it back and filled it with some solder - as I'd seen this documented on the web. It worked fine.

I took the frame to get it sandblasted this morning - fine, though they said I'd have to mask off the solder as it'd be removed by the blasting. All good.

I then drove a few blocks to the powdercoater I'd teed-up. All good until they saw the solder: 'that'll melt and make a mess when we put it in the oven at 200 degrees C - you should have used plastibond or a spot weld'. Great - just great. I had plastibond sitting there and i went with the solder as I'd read powdercoat doesn't stick to the plastic as well as the metal so may peel off.

Long story short - I've now got a bloke spraying it in 2-pac for twice what I'd had quoted on for the powdercoat.

So a word of warning don't use solder to smooth out dents if you want to powdercoat your frame.

 

[WD Pro]

Hi Mate,

Bad news but what 'solder' did you use ?

'Solder' seems to be a term used as a very large umbrella to cover anything from pcb solder right up relatively high temp brazing material.

Just interested really as I recently did the forks on my Marin (I know the stuff I used is OK though).

Get some pictures up of the frame when it’s done

WD

 

[BG]

The solder was just some cheap wire flux core from an electrical hobby shop. The powdercoaters told me a story of a local university coming in with a bunch of taps that they'd repaired with solder and wanted them powdercoated and when they put them in the oven they all fell apart!

 

[hamster]

Yes, electrical solder melts at 180C or thereabouts. :cry:

 

[mikesnowdon]

Dent repairs on steel frames are usually done with brazing brass.

Before:

After:

Shand Cycles did the work by the way.

 

[WD Pro]

And my own work on the Marin :

There are a few more pictures / details on my build thread

WD

 

[BG]

You live you learn.

Hopefully it'll all work out fine in the end.

 

[IDB1]

Interesting thread..

Was googling for dent repairs the other day (got a whoppa to deal with) and see a recommendation or 2 for using normal lead solder over anything else.. I suspect that wasn't with a view to powdercoating but I still thought it odd.. would've thought solder too soft to be that durable..

You live you learn.

Nice theory.. not one that's worked too well for me these past 40 and a bit years