paint touchups?
 

Has anyone tried just painting in parts of your bike where paint has been removed? How do I go about getting a paint colour that matches?

You could try automotive touchup paints. They're sold in little bottles about the size of nail polish at auto parts stores and auto dealers. Pretty much trial & error on matching the colour. If you can bring your bike into the store that would be a big headstart. Parts stores are a better bet since they stock matching colours for almost every brand, versus a dealer sticking to their own brand.

Just going off of what another member told me...he mixed his touch-up paint from the small bottles of model car paint until it matched the color of the bike. You of course would want to check the LBS to see if they have any matching paint of your bike if it is a newer bike. They may have touch-up paint from the manufacturer. He and I both have vintage Bianchi bikes so the color we are shooting for is Celeste. An example of his mixing was even amount of blue and green...then lightened up with white until it came to the color he was looking for. I just bought my model paint the other day at Hobby Lobby. Wish me luck.

I bought some purple spray paint that was very close to a grape colored Gitane Interclub I have and used it on the back seat stays. The results were not that bad...I did not have real high expectations because I knew no matter how hard I tried it would not match exactly. If you go at it like that more than likely you will be able to live with the results. If you think it looks bad afterward...might wanna save for a paint job or sand it and go at it again. I wish you luck!

Depends on the color of the bike here are your options (more expensive to cheaper) :

-Auto parts store for auto touch up paint
-Michael's or any other craft stores for hobby paint (not acrylic)
-Target or the X-mart of your choice for fingernail polish.

don't forget the clear coat on top

I've heard that people have had success with nail polish, especially since it comes in many more colors than auto paint. I haven't done it myself... yet. Tomorrow will be touching-up my winter project and will need to buy some "World Sport Red".

All very good advice from everyone above.

I like the hobby paint for it's spreadability when it is fresh. Make sure to get the Testors enamel paint and not the waterbased stuff. And, get a bottle of the thinner while you are there... the stuff dries on the brush, so you have to keep renewing it so that it doesn't start to glob. I mean it... going from bottle to bike, the paint starts to from a skin so you have to be efficient. Spend more on a good brush or two... those little hobby brushes will break your heart. Some paint colors will naturally be too thin and won't look great. Layer them. Go slow and be patient. I touched up a bright yellow bike and the paint was just too thin. I hit all the spots very lightly, waited, repeated a couple of times until I built up the paint to the same level as the original finish. Go slow.

I have heard about nail polish and am going to try that this week myself. Auto paint is somewhat reliable depending on brand and color. If it is spray.... spray a bunch into a container and brush it on.

I usually take the fork into the store to help me match the color. Shake the bottle well... they sit for eons and will give you a false color if matching to the glass bottles.

Happy painting.

OOH! I just noticed they have a decal setting liquid... that might have possibilities as well
[IMG]http://i805.photobucket.com/albums/y...ken/TES100.jpg[/IMG]

This topic has been addressed here and thanks for the color chart. I need to mimic the green that Legnano used on their bikes. The Sublime Green looks to be pretty close to me.

http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=31170

Ray Dobbins has a great tutorial on how he does touch ups with Testors. It is worth reading.

http://www.raydobbins.com/pantografa...er_touchup.htm

If you have a more "generic" colored bike, the Testors paint markers work pretty well, too. I've used the black, a no brainer, and the red on frames where it wouldn't clash a great deal.

Layering works well, and you'll have to deal with the buildup, but that's not hard. For filling in scratches, I've sprayed into a cup and brushed the paint on with a Q-tip. The paint will fill in the scratch nicely, but it's thin and needs several coats.

Once the paint builds up a bit, and dries well (I wait at least 3-4 days), you can use rubbing compound to smooth out the touchup spots. I don't spot clearcoat over areas I've rubbed down, because then I've got a 2nd buildup area that I can't rub down much. Some places you can clear with hobby spray clear and they'll come out fine. Other places are better left alone. There's no hard/fast rule on that.

I prefer a carefully touched up frame to a patina'd scratch and ding one any day.
If a frame is so damaged that tons of touchup is needed, or has been done and it's ugly obvious, I pass.

There's an amount of damage where too much touchup makes it worse. Unless the bike is black, a lot of non-matching touchup looks just as bad. Like many folks, though, I've gotten in a frame where something has to be done, and a repaint is not an efficient option. The only answer is touchup, and it can get very tedious. It's worth it, though.

Auto touch-up paint ... don't forget the type that comes in spray cans! The spray cans are alright, but it is difficult to get an exact match (unless you have some luck that day). I have used it to respray chain and fork stays with good results. I usually spray the entire stay, since painting small areas usually "highlight" minor differences in color. Don't forget to properly clean the area you are respraying to remove any wax and other residue that could negatively effect the way the paint adheres. The auto touch-up paint in the bottles (and Testor's model paint in the bottle...I think they also sell some colors in spray cans) is great for touching up individual small "chips" (I sometimes use a toothpick to apply the paint in these cases). Nail polish works, but I have personally only used it on red bikes.

One of our local auto paint stores will scan your bike color and mix custom paint to match. They will also put it in a spray can if you want. It is $20 per can, but worth it if you need to paint an entire bike or a tube.
One other method I have used to "fix" a large scratch is to cover it with a band of vinyl from the sign store. I don't try to color match, just use black, white,gold.

For chrome stays, which often get beat up pretty good, there is now a chrome paint that works pretty well. It's not the cold "blue" of chrome, but more of a "yellow" chrome. It works best on surfaces that are not mirror-smooth, like dropouts, but it works pretty well.