I know, just what we all need. Another carbon thread. But here it is anyway.

I bought a fork with the intention of repainting it to match my frame. The fork had decals that were under the paint, so I had to sand them off and ended up getting to bare carbon in many places. Is it safe to paint and ride this fork? Or should I trash it, get a different one, and not worry so much about the paint?

FIRSTLY: I am not and do not claim to know much of anything about carbon from an engineering perspective.

At the very least, if you are the kind of person with the budget to just get a different one, I would do so. Being on a non-existent budget myself, I could understand the desire to want to still use it. I don't know what kind of stressed it is designed to, and what direction the top weave is most strong in, and really can't say how bad of an idea riding on it would be...for all I know it could be fine, but it mightn't be as well.

unless you sanded into the carbon and removed a fair amount of it you should be fine.

AFAIK the upper layer's main purpose is to create a tough surface. Because it's woven, the fibres aren't straight so I don't think they do a lot except to protect against gouges and such.

Woven plies are pretty much only employed on the surface; all the layers underneath are pretty much unidirectional, I think... a double-bias ply which has fibres running in two directions is just two uni plies stitched together.

If you did not take like 3mm of carbon you should be ok. Primer... sand... 2 coats... sand... 2 coats of clear coat... sand and polish.

Go riding.

ps: use polyurethane car paint, dont use crappy rattle can paint that thing wont last 6 months w/o starting with problems.

Don"t be scared to sand the carbon. I used a razor blade to remove the decals so the sanding was more consistent. MAKE SURE TO WEAR A DUST MASK. The black dust is bad.

Thanks everyone. Once I hit carbon I stopped, but it was really unavoidable trying to get those decals off. The frame had no decals so I just scuffed the surface to get it ready for paint.

Yeah, I've rattlecanned cheap POS bikes before and it doesn't last. This one I will try and do a good job on. My dad recommended a 2-part epoxy clear for the final coat.

Way too late to ask but did the decals cause a "relief" above the original clear coat that just scuffing up the surface for adhesion and painting over them wouldn't have hidden?

I have a Kestrel EMS Pro and a couple of Easton EC90SLX forks and in all cases the decals are flush with the surface so no significant sanding would be needed to hide them under another coat of paint.

I do agree with the posters who said you didn't do any structural damage as it seems you stopped in plenty of time.

No, they were pretty thick. I think it would've been obvious if I scuffed them up and painted over.