Hi All,
I recently bought a 81 Cinelli (pretty sure its a supercorsa but maybe someone here can verify?) It appears to be a repaint at some point (cycle art sticker on the chainstay). The paint is in good shape (minus a few scratches/chips and whatnot) but a few of the lugs have some rust on them. The lugs on this bike are chromed and appear to have been coated with some sort of clear coat. I am thinking about removing the clear from the effected lugs and seeing if a brass brush/metal polish will remove the rust from the chrome. If not ill just get some "chrome" paint and do a bit of touch up. My question is- any ideas on how to remove the clear? I did a search and someone suggested using a razor knife and cutting along the edge of the lug and removing the paint (presumably with the knife or some sort of scraper) but im worried that this might damage the chrome. I have some aircraft stripper but im worried that might damage the chrome and if im not super careful i might get it on the paint.

Any thoughts on how to remove the clear coat?

Here is a photo of the rust in question:
[url=https://flic.kr/p/22HkLv2]

and the bike:
[url=https://flic.kr/p/EoPHoi]

Caution, I have not tried this. I had a Cyclart painted bike for a while and it had nice paint so I would figure that clear coat to be tough. I would probably start with a Dremel wire wheel hoping it will take off the clear, then rust flakes and boils while not doing too much damage to the chrome where I did not control the wheel all that well.

I think before I took a Wire Wheel to a Cinelli I would try Acetone or paint remover. Being carefull to tape of nearby Painted areas.

I wouldn't tape the area as with a thin liquid line acetone or lacquer it will get under the tape and wick to areas you're trying to protect.

To be honest with that level of rust it would not hesitate to take fine sand paper to the area. Try to remove a must as possible but take it slow. I would tape up the paint area when sanding or polishing.

You may find a small bottle of chrome paint at a local model/hobby shop to give a reasonable finish after the rust is sanded/polished away. Won't be perfect but a lot better.

Dave

I would scrape it off with a razor knife, preferably with Xacto blades in assorted shapes. A chisel with a safe side will help at the lug edges. That will be the difficult bit. Score the line first. An optivisor or similar magnifier will make it much easier. This method assumes a certain level of hand to eye control that not everyone has. There isn't an easy way to do it, other than stripping the entire frame.

Masking won't work. Sandpaper will ruin the chrome. A wire wheel might be helpful, but it would be easy to damage the surrounding paint, and it won't work for the edges at all.

Be extra careful in your sanding, it is amazing how thin the metal of a thinned lug can be and a few strokes too many cannot be replaced.

And yes, don't ask me how I know this.

I would never us a wire brush or knife to scrape the clear from chrome. Ask your local chrome plater if they would use a wire brush or knife to clean chrome, I am sure they won't recommend wire brush or scraping.
....if you want to try the acetone or paint remover. With a little care, you can work your way to the edge where the paint is, use common sense at this point so you do not use too much PR to minimize accidental.creeping onto the paint.
Then use foil and water to clean rust from chrome.
Best, Ben

Get all of that clear coat off the chrome. It's the clear that is making the chrome rust. Been there, done that. Big mistake from CyclArt.
Safest way to do the job is with fine sandpaper. Start with 600 grit. Likely once you get started the clear will likely peel. It is not that well adhered as plainly there is moisture between the clear and the chrome. If it does peel you will need to make a razor slice at edge of paint or you could peel a whole lot of clear.

Simple principle: chrome is harder than steel, therefore it can be scraped without scratching.
Sandpaper grit is harder than chrome, therefore it will scratch the chrome.

Yeah, stripper would be nice, but there's realistically no way to get a clean edge and salvage the original paint without using edge tools.

Also, the paint is likely imron or other non lacquer, and won't come off with acetone.

Thanks for the replies- ill try to chip it off with a knife first and go more aggressive from there... i think sanding is the last resort. i might be able to use a q tip and locally apply the stripper but that would be pretty dicey. the good news is that that the previous owner gave me a little bottle of touch-up paint from when it was repainted so i should be able to correct any small oopsies.

ill let everyone know how it goes.

Steel Wool works on chrome. Us fine (000) and ultra fine (0000). Mask the paint--maybe with a heavier tape, like duct tape. You can try a little WD40 or similar on the chrome to "lubricate" the steel wool.

But the rust came through the chrome .. Italians short cutting by chroming directly on steel is well known..

should have plated copper, then nickel , then chrome..

So I was able to remove all of the clear coat from the lugs using a sharp-ish xacto knife. I started at the rusty spot to break thru the finish, then cut the clear off from the surface. In the photos you can see some scratches on the chrome surface; those were actually under the clear paint. using this method I dont think i introduced any new scratches. I removed the clear from all of the lugs and used some "Nevr-dull" wadding polish to polish up the chrome. There are a few spots where the rust is worse, but its all at the surface (mainly on the bottom of the seat cluster lug). In those areas ill use some of the rust converters and follow it up with some model "chrome" paint.

here are some photos i snapped during the removal process:







overall it was a fairly easy process, just time consuming. it helped that i have a bench mounted bike stand that allowed me to position the frame for the best access. I did end up taking a brass brush to the seat cluster lug (not pictured) to remove some of the flaking off rust/chrome. it was worse than the other two lugs shown above.

Great job! Looks 1000X better. And you didn't muck up the paint.

The rust is really not that bad, mostly cosmetic. For minimal stuff like that, my preference is to simply polish it with simichrome now and then, and keep it waxed. Lots of threads on this subject...

Oh yea I’m not going to bother with painting these. The seat cluster lug is in worse shape. Still cosmetic but worse than the others. I’m pleasantly surprised with how it turned out.