Frame touchups for resale?
 

Being new at both vintage bikes and flipping I am wondering about how best to touch up small chips, scratches and surface rust on bikes for HONEST resale. Customer appeal and resale value vs. time and effort must be balanced. Matching paint (especially metallics) can take a lot of time. So once you've removed the rust & feathered the edges:

• Protect bare metal temporarily with wax or Boeshield, leave touch up or repaint decision to buyer
  
• Coat with clear nail polish or other clear & leave final touch up or repaint decision to the buyer.
  
• Prime and coat with clear nail polish or other clear, " " ".
  
• Prime and touch up with "near enough" finish paint, " " ".
  
• Match paint and charge a premium. I imagine this would only apply to higher end frames.

(Brush application is assumed unless I can find my old airbrush. Did I sell it or...?)

I wouldn't touch them up as you have ruined the resale as an all original frame set. It is only original once. Roger

I usually use model enamel for touch-ups on my bikes and bikes I am going to sell. The basic Testors enamels work well and I can get a close match by mixing paints. Adding a little silver to a base color can match the metallics. For hard to match colors I have found a wide variety of metallics and other colors at hobby shops. I usually don't feather the edges of the chips, instead I use enough paint to fill or pool the area up to the edge to give it a smooth appearance bond to the original paint. If there is rust on the the metal I use a small screwdriver or awl to scrape to the bare metal up to a solid paint edge. I've been happy with the results and the touch-ups have been durable.

Well, some of the more experienced may say differently, but I do not think you will ever get your money back from a restoration, so I would not do anything with the paint. On the other hand, I think a clean well tuned bike will sell for more, if for no other reason than it looks like the seller thinks it is worth something, and is well worth the labor and and a few bucks doing that. Also it makes you look like a bicycle dealer rather than a junk dealer. Besides tinkering with bikes is fun.