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Preparing Titanium for Paint

January 6, 2022

Q. So, I went and bought a Ducati Diavel (Titanium Edition) ...
Problem: Ducati put a Clearcoat paint over the Ti body panels and it is peeling off. This is a known issue on all the bikes.

50904-1b 50904-1a

I was wondering if I strip off all the clear, can I have a Coating like DLC or other PVD or CVD coating that will work? The panels have a little flex to them so whatever finish is applied must be able to take that flex. I would like to stay in the color range of Silver/ Grey/ Black and have high scratch resistance. The largest panel is the gas tank and would fit in a 26" x 18" x 12" Box . I cannot spend thousands so I need to act appropriately on my methods. Thank You All

Daniel Edwards
Hobbyist - Danbury Connecticut
privately respond to this RFQ ^
Ed. note: As always, gentle readers: technical replies in public and commercial replies in private please (huh? why?)

A. Hi Daniel. Unfortunately, while PVD & CVD coatings might work and are appropriate for mass production application, they're not for onesy-twosy jobs (people won't tie up & risk contaminating their multi-million dollar machines). Automotive paints with their two-component clearcoats are reasonably scratch resistant (you can judge for yourself whether they're good enough since examples are everywhere). Ceramic/porcelain coating might be doable and might barely be in your price range.

Luck & Regards,

Ted Mooney, P.E. RET
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
January 2022

⇩ Closely related postings, oldest first ⇩

Q. I paint bicycles and motorcycles. I have painted numerous steel, aluminum, and carbon fiber bicycles but am now being asked to paint a titanium bicycle frame and am concerned about adhesion of the primer to the titanium. I've been warned by one paint company representative that I will likely have problems but they did not offer any solution. On aluminum frames I use a two step chemical treatment consisting of a phosphoric acid based clean/etch step followed by a chromate conversion step. Is there an equivalent set of steps for Ti and are the chemicals available in reasonably small quantities? I normally use an epoxy or epoxy/acrylic hybrid primer, but I've seen recommendations to use a vinyl wash primer on Ti. Is a vinyl wash primer really likely to provide improved adhesion on Ti?

Harry Phinney
bicycle & motorcycle painter - Albany, Oregon, USA
January 10, 2009

A. YOU CAN SANDBLAST WITH ALUMINA AND THEN PAINT, OR ETCH THE TITANIUM BY CHEMICAL PROCESS BUT FOR THAT YOU WILL NEED DANGEROUS ACIDS AND SPECIAL EQUIPMENT

Ricardo Burstein
Bnei Berak, Israel
January 13, 2009

Q. I'm having trouble adhering to commercially-pure titanium. Processes that work with Ti-6Al-4V do not work with C-P.

Prefer to use BR-127 as primer.

Tim Cole
- Laurel, Maryland, USA
May 3, 2012

A. Don't paint. Just anodize it to different attractive colours!

H.R. Prabhakara - Consultant
Bangalore Plasmatek - Bangalore Karnataka India
May 7, 2012

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