frame painting

[longhorn]

How did Harley paint their frame's?
I'm thinking they used enamel paint's, did they bake these on?
I'm just wondering why, when I spray a frame I get nick's, and scratch's, but you can throw rock's at an old Harley frame, and not chip the paint? My painting is not that bad, it just does not stand up to abuse, like a Harley frame paint job.
No, I don't want to powdercoat the frame. Beside's being expensive, it definitely isn't the way Harley did it, in the 50s-60s.
Thanks
Jim

[1950Panhead]

Tanks and fenders were baked enamel.
I think the frames were also baked enamel, as you noticed the paint is durable.
Base coat /clear coat (with catalyst) is more durable (and glossier) then single stage enamel.
Jerry

[1962FLH]

autos and cycles were all painted with lead base paint back in the day and Harley spray painted frames with it as far back as the 1930s

[Hog54]

Mines painted with black urethane and a urethane clear coat and no chips so far in 16 years.

[Schwee]

If I ever win the Lottery, I'm having my (rigid) frame chromed.

[Lynrd]

You might want to do a Google for "Hydrogen Embrittlement" after winning the lottery but before the trip to the chrome shop...

[George Greer]

You might want to do a Google for "Hydrogen Embrittlement" after winning the lottery but before the trip to the chrome shop...

Yup....

At work we just received a message from the safety center about a helicopter that crashed due to Hydrogen Embrittlement, that was caused by washing with Simple Green,......Critical flight components were affected, and no one caught the damage that the use of that stuff was causing during inspections.

US Army helicopters are banned from being washed with Simple Green.

I don't even wash my hands with it.

George

[Schwee]

That's interesting. I did google it and found, among a lot of stuff:

Hydrogen codeposition can occur in the plating process either during the actual electrolytic deposition or during the cleaning and acid pickles preceding the plating bath. It is readily removed from the metal lattice by baking the product immediately after plating. The requirement for baking is a time-at-temperature cycle that is generally specified on the part print or within a plating specification. A typical cycle is to bake at 375ºF for 4 hours within 1 hour after plating.

[Lynrd]

Correct.

Now, after finding a plating shop with tanks large enough for the frame, and the ability to actually do all of the polishing for the job not to look like ass, now find a bake off oven that you can use, and hopefully have a jig to put that frame in so it emerges in some sort of useful shape, and hope the bake off process didn't anneal the steel to the point it's integrity is questionable.

Not impossible, but sounds like a royal pain in the butt to me. Still, if you want to build Captain America - only chrome would do.