Sandblasting and paint questions
 

So, in keeping with my trend of staying in over my head, I've decided to take on the project of sandblasting and painting a motorcycle frame myself. I had an electrician over today who hooked up my monster 80 gallon Curtis air compressor.
I have an outdoor sandblaster that I've never used. Somewhere, I've got the owners manual for it so I can probably figure out how to get it running.
What type of media would work best to strip the paint on the feame to bare metal?
I'm also considering buying some walnut shells or glass bead to polish up the engine case.

Next question:

what type of primer and paint should I use for a motorcycle frame? You know... Durable, easy to shoot with an HVLP gun.
Tips and suggestions are welcome as I've never done this before.

Can you put baking soda in it and soda blast? I've soda blasted a car chassis before, and while I'm not sure if it's the same equipment sans media, soda blasting freaking rocks.

I use #80 garnet, which only leaves a super-light texture on the metal which is easily filled by the first coat of primer.

PPG DP40 is a good epoxy primer, CLV is a good, durable, single-stage paint.

Lee, I done a bunch of these blast/paint motorcycle restorations over the years. There is no absolute best procedure for this.

I have used silica sand years ago (hard to find now due to the real health risk associated with breathing in the silica) and in recent years I have simply used Black Beauty type blasting media (very common and available at most tool rental places in large bags). While finer blast media gives nicer results, they are kind of pricy to use in an outdoor blasting operation as it is all wasted and motorcycle frames take alot of blasting media because one has to keep rotating around to hit all the surfaces.

I have used baking in my blast cabinet (Harbor Freight stores now carry it in 50 lb bags) and it works nicely for cleaning up aluminum parts giving them a frosted appearance which can then be polished or painted. It might be worth trying it on your frame, but I don't think it will cut the paint as fast as Black Beauty or sand.

The problem with the agressive cheap media is that it is difficult to fill with primer and paint... It will look nice at first but weeks later as the solvents all evaporate out, you can sometimes see the blast pits in the finish. Now when I blast parts with agressive media, I go back over them with some sandpaper to knockdown the surface slightly prior to priming.

I have used several brands of primer paint systems over the years and my favorite combo for long term quality/durability is Dupont Corlar epoxy primer coated with Dupont Imron or other Dupont topcoats. I have also used Nason (owned by Dupont) polyurethane topcoats. The PPG DP primer Widebody mentioned is good stuff as well if you choose to use PPG primer/topcoat brand.

This scooter was all bare metal blasted then primed with Dupont Corlar Epoxy and topcoated with both Dupont Imron and Nason topcoats. It came out fantastic and still looks better than new after two years of dad riding it.

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There are plenty of different ways to do this stuff depending on what products are available local to you. If you want to discuss further, PM me your #.

Just be careful as some areas consider sand from sand blasting a HazMat material.

I was going to weigh in until I saw Tim's post.

My new suggestion: Listen to Tim.

The only thing I can add is that sometimes a rotating wire brush (either on a bench grinder or a hand held) is faster and easier than a sand blaster. For a batch of small parts I also have used a chemical shop. But maybe you really want to work like a dog for a few weeks, I'm not sure.

Drop off and pick up a few days later. All done.

Lastly, you do not want paint advice from me, unless you want to hear that it's not worth it to learn how to paint when material costs $500 per gallon. Well preppes and masked parts can be dropped at Maaco.