Touching up naked carbon

bendls

Hi All,

Recently I bought a Specialized Tarmac Comp, 2014, with the matte finish. Its a gorgeous bike. Well I took my first tumble yesterday (not just first on this bike, but first in a long time) resulting in a scratch on the rear of the frame - not to mention a pedal which now just says "egra"...

I have heard model paints, such as Testors or similar, are good to touch up areas, and just wondered if anyone had any experience on a matte finish such as this?

I have used a model colour database online to try and match the colour and have some tester pots coming, but interested in anyones success or failures?

Gutted I marked the bike, and gutted due tot he damage to myself my training is taking a back seat

Thanks

Ben

P.S. I have searched the site and yes seen many posts about this, but nothing that concludes with any experience, success or failure - sorry if I have missed that.

Bar Shaker

Paint will never match the look of carbon as you see a holographic textured effect with carbon. Paint will just be a colour sitting on the surface of the carbon around it.

You may be able to polish out the road rash with some really fine wet and dry paper. Just be careful you don't rub through the gel coat though.

If you have gouged the frame, it may be weakened structurally. I would get it checked out.

rolf_f

Bare CF tidies up really easily IME. I've not tried on a frame but I've repaired eg cf shifter levers with quite deep scrape marks. Sand the scratches down and spray matt lacquer over. No gel coats as such - just lacquer over the CF - I've sanded into that without any problem at all and the repairs have come out pretty much invisible. If the scratch is deep enough that you would worry about sanding it away, just tidy it up as much as possible and spray over - matt is a pretty forgiving finish. Of course, you can't blend the spray in using rubbing compound as you would with gloss so you may need to spray all the way to an edge - life is a lot easier with gloss!

superbagneres

Clear nail varnish could be a quick alternative.

pinno

Tamiya acrylic paints are excellent and Humbrol No.8 - matt black and lacquer over the top. I have just touched up my newly acquired C40 which had a scrape along the top tube accross the COLNAGO transfer, very tricky but got there in the end. The paint, if put on carefully can be used as a 'filler'.
I'd go with Rolf F and use a spray lacquer - very forgiving unless the whole appearance is a matt colour.