Powder Coating
14 February 2020Happy Valentine's Day!
As I wrote in my previous post, I'm having my bicycle frame refinished. This is purely cosmetic; the paint on the frame was pretty scratched up and worn through to the metal in a few places. Powder coating will give the frame a nice durable finish.
I dropped off the frame at Pro Powder Coating earlier this week to have it sandblasted and powder coated in satin black, and this afternoon I got a call that it was finished.
It came out great; the folks at Pro Powder Coating know what they're doing and it shows. Everything was masked properly and I didn't have to sand off anything or chase any threads. Overall, it was well worth the relatively low cost compared to the time and tedium it would take me to properly sand and repaint the frame myself. And I hate painting.
I also installed a new headset into the frame. The headset is basically the bearings that support the front fork securely in the frame. I chose to use a Cane Creek Viscoset headset.
The Viscoset provides a small amount of damping to steering inputs in order to help make the bike more stable, especially targeting uncontrolled oscillations, or "speed wobble", that can pop up at higher speeds. Although the Viscoset was originally designed for use with e-bikes, it turns out to be well-suited for all kinds of bikes. Bikepacking.com has a great in-depth review of the Viscoset.
Tomorrow I'll assemble the rest of the components onto the frame and get it ready for a nice Sunday afternoon ride.
