I've been wanting to repaint my frame for a long time, but I just didn't have the time to do it. If you are looking to repaint yours, there are two reputable places in the San Francisco Bay Area. One is D+D cycles in the East Bay, and the other one is West Coast Powdercoating in South San Francisco. I am sure there are other ones too, but you can't go wrong with these two.There are three common ways to paint your bike: brush, spray, and powder-coat. I won't go into details, but D+D Cycles does spray painting and West Coast Powdercoat does the other type of coating... (you got it). To be honest, brush and spray paint sounds pretty explanatory to me, but what is powder coat? According to Wiki:
Powder coating is a type of coating that is applied as a free-flowing, dry powder. The main difference between a conventional liquid paint and a powder coating is that the powder coating does not require a solvent to keep the binder and filler parts in a liquid suspension form.If it's still not clear to you, here's the clip to give you a better picture:
If the video still doesn't make any sense to you and doesn't look too different from spray painting, don't worry, that's exactly what I think too. For expert powder coaters, please forgive me for not having knowledge in this area. From what I heard, Surly and many bike manufacturers powder-coat their bikes.
I have a Mikkelsen bike that is painted by Rick from D+D cycles, and I can tell it's absolutely gorgeous to look at. This is the reason why I called Rick up and requested a quote from him for my Surly Ogre.
Rick quoted me $400.00 for the painting a single color on the frame and the fork and providing my own decals. Hm... my Surly Ogre frameset only cost $600.00 new, it wouldn't make any sense to spend another $400 on the frameset only. So I talked to AJ Costa from West Coast Powder Coat, he quoted me $100 for the frame and +$20 for the fork.
Weeks before, I tried to strip the paint myself because I thought it's something that they wouldn't do for you. It turned out I was wrong they would strip the paint for you, which was a very good news for me because it wasn't something straight forward for someone like myself to do it. I followed some DIY websites that instructed me to apply CitrusStrip, then wrap frame with plastic food wrap, let the frame sit there for a few hours, and finally sand the paint off. After two attempts, I couldn't even get 20% of the paint off the frame. Other stripping chemicals might work, but I wouldn't recommend CitrusStrip for your bike frame.
Anyways, I made my decision and went with West Coast Powdercoating because of the close to 5-stars reviews from Yelp, and the price is more reasonable for a Surly frame. Also, I decided to choose my favorite bike frame color, black, and not to paint the fork because it's already... black. I bought my frame in on Monday and got it back Friday of the same week. I should've taken some before-pics, but I didn't. Below are some pictures I took:
Some shops paints the inside of the bottom brackets, but I am glad West Coast PC doesn't do that and super happy with the result. Now I need to prep the frame, and possibly buy a Rohloff Speedhub which this frame is designed for. It's still to early to decide what I wanted to do, but I will keep you updated.
More Info:
West Coast Powder Coating - Yelp Reviews
D+D Cycles - Yelp Reviews
D+D Cycles - Youtube:
