Once the CBR600RR was stripped down to the engine separated from the frame, I decided to look into getting it sand-blasted. A lot of people online suggest using walnut shells as a media instead of sand to reduce risk of damage to the aluminum frame. I figured that in these times it would be good to support a local small business and found a guy with a family owned business on Kijiji that had pictures of car frames and was offering sand-blasting and painting services. I asked for a quote for sand-blasting and he came back with $200 – $300 for the frame and swing-arm. I messaged a couple of other guys but got no responses so I went for it and dropped the bits off on Saturday afternoon. Early Monday afternoon, the parts were done!
I was thinking of putting a clear coat on but they looked more dull and matt than I expected – it was a bit late then to ask what media was used. The guy quoted $200 more to paint it and I expected powder coating to be more than that so I agreed to have it painted and said I would let him know what colour. Then Danny told me about a powder coating place in Brampton called Rice Rocket so I emailed them to get a quote. While waiting for that quote I got a message saying that the frame and swing-arm were in the paint booth, what colour was I going with? I chose matt black and then the powder coat quote came in at $250 so I figured that I had done alright. The next day I told Rice Rocket I was too slow and found out that the $250 they quoted included chemical paint strip and sand-blasting!!! Ugh. Anyway on Wednesday morning, as promised, I got a message saying that the frame and swing-arm were cured and ready to pick up, $500 please! I was not impressed with that, no explanation of why it was at the absolute max of the range he quoted but when I asked, he just fobbed me off with a story of how much prep work he had to do. My own fault for rushing in and being too trusting, but at least the parts do look pretty good now, even though from 10ft away you would be hard pressed to see a $500 improvement.
I’ll finish off checking the valve clearances and clean up the valve cover then I can get the engine back in the frame and start rebuilding.
