To paint titanium or not

[BikeliciousBabe]

Too bad you didn't look into Cerakote. Lighter, more durable and cheaper than paint. It's what I have on my custom ti road bike.

[oldguybiker]

Cerakote a bike? Excellent idea! Suspect it would work on steel or aluminum frames as well.   

[dhurwitz]

I had never heard of Cerakote until your post, Babe.  It looks interesting.  How does one go about getting a bike coated with Cerakote?  Doesn't the item need to get baked?  I am almost certainly going to let my frame builder paint the bike, since I have seen the results and they are very good.  But I am curious about Cerakote.

Thanks.

[BikeliciousBabe]

You need to find someone with experience in coating. My frame was done by Paint by Todd as the builder does not have his own paint shop:

http://paintbytodd.com/Home_Page.html

The coating is sprayed on and then the frame is baked at relatively low temperature. Don't know the exact temperature, but to give you an idea, Enve is cool with coating their carbon forks. Doesn't void the warranty.

[litespeed]

One advantage of a bare titanium frame is that you can apply and remove decals with greater ease. My Litespeed has a "pete's machine" decal in 1" lower case letters on both sides of the top tube. When it gets too damaged I can remove it with acetone, a rag and lots of rubbing. This probably would be a bad idea with a painted frame. Scraping or peeling off the letters leaves glue and scratches. Acetone removes everything neatly.