OK, it is time to cover the frame with color. I plan to paint the sheetmetal at Buck Wild paint shop in Covina, CA. I asked if it was cool if I tried to do the paint job myself, or at least as many parts as possible. I have painted various things in the past, from skateboards to mini-bikes (anything that my kids own), but never a custom bike like this. Well, if you count the last bike I did with a high-tech rattle spray can in black, then I got it down. I knew I needed a good base color to start with, and I wanted it to be strong-something that could stand up to the beating I put on bikes. I wanted the frame to be powdercoated in candy red. Buck told me that this base color is easy to color-match at Concept Powder Coating.
I called Mike Logan, owner of Concept Powder Coating in Rancho Cucamonga, CA, (say that three times) to see if he had some time. Once I was off the phone with Mike, I headed to his shop to drop off the frame. I told Mike what color I was going with, and as soon as I got there I could see that he had a wall of color samples to pick from. The last time I was there he had about 20-plus colors, and now it seemed powder colors had come a long way. There is also a full line of custom colors that can be ordered and mixed up. One of the newest things to come out of this shop is called Flash Chrome-it looks just like chrome, but is powder. This is something to think about when doing parts that are not seen easily, like transmission cases or carburetor bodies-you know, the parts you can't wash easily. Up close you can see the powder, but take a step back and it looks like chrome. We plan to do something with this as soon as we get the part we what to chrome. But for now it is new on the bike side of the industry, although Concept Powder Coating has been doing it for the car side for a long time.