Stripping paint off a carbon fork

[cycling_chick]

Hi all.

 

Please help.

We have around 20 carbon forks but the the paint is currently chipping off.

The bike supplier obviously didn't use the right paint or something.

So we were thinking of stripping the paint off, and maybe painting it with a clear coat if neccesary. Cause the Carbon is obviously going to look better than it currently does.

Does anyone know how to do this and which procedure to follow???

 

Thanks in advance!!

[Carbon Magic]

You will have to sand away the paint and then respray. Paint stripper will damage the molecular integrity of the resin.

[Minion]

molecular integrity of the resin.

It depends on the paint stripper, but this is unlikely. Epoxy resin is pretty inert, except for some rather nasty solvents.

But the methylene chloride used in some paint strippers may fall into this rather nasty category.

 

A bigger problem would be that the underlying carbon might look pretty crap, depending on the layup, since it wouldn't have been covered with any cosmetic layers to make it look pretty.

Edited March 8, 2011 by Edman

[Minion]

If you're careful, apply it carefully and in small quantities, paint stripper should be OK.

 

It takes about an hour for the solvent to penetrate to 0.05mm below the surface of epoxy cured at 60°C if it's completely submerged.

 

Test it on part of one fork to see how it goes. Unless you leaving soaking for a really long time, or the forks weren't properly cured, the penetration depth is too low to cause significant structural damage. The stripper also has to penetrate the paint before it gets to the resin.

[TNT1]

Take them to one of the guys that manufactures and customises carbion bits for motorbikes and cars.

[MTBer wannabee]

20 forks, now thats a lot of hard work. You might find that the supplier did not prep the forks properly before painting.

 

I would suggest sand down and remove any excess paint with acetone. Paint stripper is evil stuff. My guess is that you will probably have to respray, because if the manufacturer cant perp and spray correctly, chances are that the weave is probably very untidy with a bit of filler too.