I have a bike I rescued from the trash that I'm currently trying to restore for my son. (It's cheaper than buying him a new bike, and he's really excited about getting a custom bike!)
I've stripped it down as much as I can without buying special tools and I'm about ready to paint it. (I'm going to paint it black, then put some decals on he picked out, then a clear coat to seal everything.
My question is, do I have to remove the crankset before painting? Or is there a way to protect it during the painting process without removing it. Same with the front fork.
This is what the frame currently looks like. I do need to sand it before painting, but want to make sure I don't have to remove anything else first!
Thank you! This is my first time rebuilding a bike, so I want to make sure I'm not messing it up!
by Aware-Cockroach-6053
22 Comments
You can do whatever you want, but I have a feeling you already know what you should do.
Just remove them… you already stripped the whole bike down…
Hmm you probably could cover all of that completely in painter’s tape. Or put a plastic bag over the cranks and then seal it over the bottom bracket with painter’s tape? Most important thing is to avoid getting any paint inside the bottom bracket or the head tube.
But also, a shop would probably charge a pretty reasonable price just to remove and re-install the cranks and fork. Not sure how tight your budget is.
Yes, but you can’t paint a bike frame well without removing the fork and crankset.
I’d remove both, paint frame, then examine bearings/ conditions, re- grease or replace.
You can, but you shouldn’t.
Cover those with painter’s tape and newspaper
I can’t tell but you can likely pop that crank with a flathead screwdriver and a hammer. Soft mallet or deadblow if you’re fancy
Remove the parts. You’ll find sanding and painting with them on difficult and likely to compromise the finish. Got any avid cyclist friends? Good chance they’ll have the tools necessary. If not, AliExpress is a good source of bicycling tools for little money.
It’ll come out looking like shit if you don’t. Great time to teach your son how to maintain a bicycle tbh.
You can tape mask all kinds of stuff, but I’m not sure you’ll get good coverage under the chainring.
Fork painted on the frame is possible but makes it harder to move the frame around when painting.
Edit: just reread the post. If it’s all going to be black, go in blasting it’s fine. Tape around the bottom bracket and headset, but you’ll need to mask that either way.
There’s a lot of grumps telling op to Do It Right. I am curious how many of them have painted a bike.
use the newspaper, plastic bag and tape to cover the parts you don’t want to paint.
I would remove it all, the fork is easy to remove, the crankset l, worst case, ask a bikeshop to do it real quick for a six pack.
That way you can also service the bearings and grease it all up again.
Do you want it to look decent?
If the easy way were the right way it would just be called the way.
Take the fork and crank off. It’s not hard, and you’ll get a much better result with the paint job.
All off. Its easy to do and you can check and greese the bearings at the same time.
You can. But you definitely shouldn’t
You can tape off the fork if you really don’t want to remove it. Crankset has to be removed if you want to prep the area properly and get proper application of the paint.
If you’re not worried about it being perfect, you can also tape up the crankset and just work around it. You’ll have a hard time getting a proper scratch behind it and also spraying, but it should still hold up long enough for your son to outgrow the bike.
Just to be overly clear since I don’t know your experience, taping up in this case means masking tape where the fork meets the frame and at the outer and inner edges of the ring with masking paper (not college-rule 😉) covering the area between. You’re painting metal, so I suggest heading to your local auto paint store, not a hardware store; they will have everything you need and may have helpful suggestions. They also often have high quality paint they’re selling at a very low price because they mixed it for someone who never came in to get it.
If you want everyone to think you stole it have at it.
Look around for a local free bike garage or bike co-op. They often have tools that you can use for free and have volunteers around that can help you out.
If you don’t want to pay for the tools only to use it once, run down to your local bike shop and ask if they would take them off for you. Should only take a couple of minutes.
It will make the world of difference to the finished job to remove everything
If you remove it then you will have to protect the big holes. I would just tape it up and paint it.