Advice sought: dealing with a deeply scratched head-tube

deejay.

Hi all,

I have a bike I want to sell, a child's bike, which has a deeply (and I mean deeply) scratched head-tube: the bike was used with a Trail-gator, before I had discovered helicopter tape and, to be honest, the first time I put it on, I made something of a pig's ear of the whole thing, had to dismantle and remount it, and it looks pretty bad :oops: which is a shame, because the rest of the bike, cosmetically and mechanically, is fantastic.

I'm looking for some advice, please, on how I could get someone (let's face it, I don't have the time, and certainly not the expertise) to tidy it up cosmetically so that when it comes to selling the bike, I'm not going to lose a load of money unnecessarily due to the cosmetics of the head tube.

Second hand value of the bike is around £150, so I don't want to spend that to tidy up the head-tube...

I may be asking the impossible, but I'd really like to hear your thoughts...

Many thanks,

deej

sungod

if the edges are rough, use some fine abrasive paper to smooth it

clean and degrease

touch up with matching car scratch repair pen

shouldn't take more than 30 minutes and a fiver for the pen

fudgey

or nail varnish is pretty good if you can find a good match

wishitwasallflat

Good advice above but please also include before and after pictures of the damage in the advert for the bike so if I am going to buy it for one of my kids I can decide for myself if the damage was cosmetic or not.

deejay.

wishitwasallflat wrote:

Good advice above but please also include before and after pictures of the damage in the advert for the bike so if I am going to buy it for one of my kids I can decide for myself if the damage was cosmetic or not.

Oh, you won't have to worry - I don't think it's right for you...

deejay.

Fudgey wrote:

or nail varnish is pretty good if you can find a good match

Thanks!

deejay.

sungod wrote:

if the edges are rough, use some fine abrasive paper to smooth it

clean and degrease

touch up with matching car scratch repair pen

shouldn't take more than 30 minutes and a fiver for the pen

Thanks!

wishitwasallflat

deejay. wrote:

wishitwasallflat wrote:

Good advice above but please also include before and after pictures of the damage in the advert for the bike so if I am going to buy it for one of my kids I can decide for myself if the damage was cosmetic or not.

Oh, you won't have to worry - I don't think it's right for you...

Highlighted some pertinent text for you. Or, did you perhaps read this correctly and you are saying it's not right for my kids? If so is that perhaps because you realised I would be wary of buying a second hand bike for one of my children from a seller who had disguised damage in order to get me to pay more?

Bobbinogs

Yes, it is a bit of a strange one. "I have badly damaged a kids bike but am going to flog it so want to cover the damage up before the sale". Might be somewhat understandable but it doesn't come across as too ethical.

wishitwasallflat

Bobbinogs wrote:

Yes, it is a bit of a strange one. "I have badly damaged a kids bike but am going to flog it so want to cover the damage up before the sale". Might be somewhat understandable but it doesn't come across as too ethical.

Nice to see I'm not the only one who recognises this issue!

fudgey

Sounds to me like he has scratched the head tube and wants to touch it up to make it more presentable to sell.

Maybe a picture or three could be of benefit?

wishitwasallflat

Fudgey wrote:

Sounds to me like he has scratched the head tube and wants to touch it up to make it more presentable to sell.

Maybe a picture or three could be of benefit?

That would be the usual form for this type of post - but - the OP describing the damage as deeply (and I mean deeply) scratched head-tube is the unusual feature! I would love to see before and after pics as I am intrigued both by the damage and the moral perspective.

veronese68

When selling bikes on Ebay being open about any issues instils confidence in the seller and often results in a higher price. So honesty is very much the best policy for something like this.

Lookyhere

cheap alloy kids bike with scratched paint that may or may not go down into the alloy, unless he did this damage with an angle grinder, then its cosmetic.
just post pic of damage in ad and how it happened, i d not bother with any repair.

fudgey

Lookyhere wrote:

cheap alloy kids bike with scratched paint that may or may not go down into the alloy, unless he did this damage with an angle grinder, then its cosmetic.
just post pic of damage in ad and how it happened, i d not bother with any repair.

This.

Unless you re-paint the whole frame you will see any touch-up effort.
But you could make it look a lot better, just depends how bad it really is.

wishitwasallflat

Veronese68 wrote:

When selling bikes on Ebay being open about any issues instils confidence in the seller and often results in a higher price. So honesty is very much the best policy for something like this.

This:
I would defo be happy to pay a better price to a seller who showed me the bike warts-n-all. I would have much more confidence in what I was getting than if there were touched up bits.