The Chopper Compendium

can you paint stainless steel? i've always wondered if you could.

i have seen a few painted back to the future cars they were stainless dont know how well it holds up though

ok. i just didn't know if it acted like aluminum since it isn't 1020 mild steel like most bike frames are made out of. when i watched the american chopper build off with jesse james and the teutels (ugh, sigh), he didn't paint the frame and he used stainless steel. i machine stainless at my job and it's a bitch to work with.

I had to paint several sections of stainless railings for a customer. I use Shewin-Williams a lot and called my rep. He told me what primer to use. It is an etching primer and must be applied in a single, very thin coat.
This is an INDUSTRIAL product... don't expect to find it at a S-W store in the mall.

I had to paint several sections of stainless railings for a customer. I use Shewin-Williams a lot and called my rep. He told me what primer to use. It is an etching primer and must be applied in a single, very thin coat.
This is an INDUSTRIAL product... don't expect to find it at a S-W store in the mall.

The 'stainless' alloys were developed for applications where a 'coating' would be intrusive to the environment intended for the material, such as labs, kitchens, hospital, process piping etc. It is not a user friendly material and eats up tooling and becomes very brittle when welded so I wouldn't use anywhere near a bike. Contrary to popular myth it does rust but it just takes longer. Why build something from this material if you're going to paint over it?