carbon touch ups

[justride]

Hi.

I have a few scratches and chips on my carbon road bike.

what can i touch up with?

can i use colour nail polish for chips?

thanks.

 

[Jacoo]

If the scratches don't go all the way to the frame you'll be surprised what you can do with some polishing. I used a 3 step process to remove scratches from a bike I bought used, I can post before and after pics. First the finest grit wet sandpaper i could find, second a buffing compound, and third a polishing compound, all by hand. For chips that go to the frame you want to get touch up car paint that matches the colour (try be accurate, for example there are countless different whites). They sell them in little nail polish bottles, touch up enough to overfill the chip slightly, then used the abovementioned process to get it level with the surrounding paint.

[justride]

Thanks for the advice  .where would I get The touch up paint?

photos would be great  to see

[Jacoo]

I carried on polishing in circles a bit after the second photo, just to remove the lines, but you can see how much it took out. Be careful not to sand or buff too deep, take your time. I cannot for the life of me remember where I got the paint, it was from some auto shop in pta. The pictures only show the buffing area, I didn't take pics of the chip I did.

[Vetseun]

Do yourself a favour and send your bike to Graeme Kidson aka Carbon Ninja.

The man is an artist of note.

[justride]

Wow. Thanks for advice.will give it a try in the next week.

[Jacoo]

Wow. Thanks for advice.will give it a try in the next week.

No problem, you can see sometimes scratches look hectic but they're actually just superficial. You can send in to have it done but doing it yourself is probably much cheaper and very easy. My bike isn't carbon but I don't think its even relevant. Good luck, post pics:)