Can you help - lacquer?

JS200

Hi,

I have a aluminium brushed frame with a clear lacquer finish. Unfortunately, somehow, it has picked up a small scrape on the top tube. Not too bad but want to clean it up.

I have some car touch-up lacquer which came with a touch-up paint set from a car shop. Before I start I wanted to see if anyone could recommend the best method.

Should I wet sand it down? Do I need to degrease it before I apply the lacquer? Will the car lacquer do the job?

Any advice gratefully received! Cheers!

diamonddog

I've used it on my bikes with no problems just to touch up small stone chips.

JS200

Thanks, did you sand it down first and degrease it, or just blob it on?

keef66

As long as you get to it before any corrosion has occurred I'd just very carefully paint it on. Trying to sand it down will just scratch a larger area of lacquer.

Monty Dog

You can rub down but you'll need to go through the various grades of wet and dry to keep the finish. If it's only a small area, degrease with meths / alcohol and apply touch-up

diamonddog

^ As above

JS200

Thanks for your advice.

I wet sanded the scrape with very fine paper and it has smoothed it down, looks better than it did before. I tried to apply the lacquer but had to remove it as the finish wasn't great. Looking at it - I almost prefer it just sanded down (bare ally) with no lacquer applied - the lacquer makes it look sort of blobbed and raised.

Could I just leave it un-lacquered? Would this cause an issue long-term?

Thanks

keef66

It'll start to corrode as soon as they start putting salt on the roads, or possibly sooner if you're a sweaty bugger and supply your own salt. Once it's under the lacquer it seems to start burrowing sideways. More cosmetic than structural.

My son had a MTB with a clear-coated alloy frame. Chipped and scratched to buggery, and ridden in all weathers doing several paper rounds. Not very shiny at all now!

JS200

Great - OK, thanks for that. I'll put some on tomorrow then.

Cheers for your advice.

bikeit65

If you have any thinners mix it with some lacquer in a cup or whatever you have lying around so it goes on a lot thinner and it will look better when it dries.

mpdouglas

If there is still a distinct scratch with some depth to it, I would reapply the touch up lacquer and then use Langka "blob eliminator" (http://www.langka.com/index.php/how-it-works) to make it smooth. I use this product on stone ships on my car and it works like they say it does. You can buy it in the UK from Frost Auto Restoration (http://www.frost.co.uk/langka-paint-chi ... -kits.html).

There are also specific pen based products for applying clear lacquer into fine scratches (Google "Clear Coat Pen").

JS200

Hi - ah, I didn't get those two last posts before I tried the fix.

I ended up masking off the area, papering the bike and using a spray lacquer, to get a better finish. This actually looks better than the touch-up pen I think.

As a result, as expected, when I removed the masking tape there is a little rectangular line around the area - when it's dry, is there a product I can use to merge it in, a polish or something?

Cheers!