Other than going to an auto body paint place to try to match colors, anyone know of someone/somewhere that specializes in vintage bike paint? I only need some touch up bottles. Thanks,

Aaron in Indy

Aaron, This has worked well for me: https://www.testors.com/category/133656/Testors .

Brad

Try looking for a hobby store that sells models (trains, planes & automobiles). My local hardware store has a large hobby section in the basement.

Brilliant! Never woulda thought of model paint - I can't buy a couple dozen for the cost of paint matching. Thanks gents

Here's another shot. I'm spoiled.

Consider nail polish as well, if you have a red bike. I was able to get a nice red sparkily nail polish that matched the candy metal-flake on my Ciocc.

Gaucho777. You sure are spoiled. That has to be one of the most extensive model paint displays I've ever seen. Better than either my local hobby shop or specialty shop. My local ACE has nothing like that. You're lucky.

I recently used model paint, enamel, to touch up a bike, and paint the frame pump I put on it. Testor's is good stuff but probably not as durable as enamels meant for exterior use. You can always clear coat it though, and it's fine for small touch ups on bikes.

The craft store chain Michael's has a pretty good selection of enamels in colors beyond the ususal Testors stuff.

No red metal-flake but have some purple. Not sure I've seen purple fingernails!?

Man. We must have the "small town" versions of both ACE hardware and Michael's. No such selection at our Michael's.

A word of caution: back in the days you went to a hobby store and bought enamels that came in flat, gloss, semi-gloss or gloss metallic. These days, the paint sections of hobby stores (at least here in Japan) are confusing. So, I usually check with the shop keeper before I purchase just to be sure. Nowadays there are enamels, water-based acrylics and lacquers. When I do touch ups, I want the enamels — paint that is thinned with some sort of aromatic.

Recently, I needed some metallic candy apple red and could not find any. When I was a kid, model hot rods were a rage, and candy apple red was all over the place.

+1 I have touched up several bikes using nail polish you may look a little strange but go to a discount beauty supply store and you can find paint in almost any color cheap if you don't need a lot. I touched up the paint on this clunker for $5 and sold it for $200.

Doesn't that nail polish wear down quick? I can't imagine it lasting very long...

Candiies (or Kandies) and metallics are completely different. Candies consist of a metallic base coat, usually silver or gold, under a translucent colored top coat. Metallic paints have fine bits of metal in them.

That looks like a sweet hobby shop Gaucho! For some reason, I have always had a soft spot for them since I was a kid; build lots of model airplanes mostly. Wish we still had a cool one around here!

I had to do that to match the pearl, the silver flake, on my Soma; Soma recommended Testor's brand silver hobby paint, but pearl-grain was too fine. I had to blend it with kind of a gaudy silver nail polish to get it to look right.

That was before I discovered these guys:

https://www.hiroboy.com/catalog/produ...oducts_id=1250

I love auto touch up, I took the clamp on stand of the Nishiki (which is really heading to the keep pile) and used GM Dark Cherry Red to touch up the damage, one side already had a coat before I thought to grab the camera. In person the it is very very slightly lighter than the original, but this happens when you just take a guess without the bike there.

The great thing about these guys is that they sell RAL-coded hobby paints in small quantities. If you know the RAL code of your bike's paint, you can get an exact match.

Is there some kind of master RAL database for old bikes?

I seriously doubt it. Old cars, maybe, but not vintage bicycles. That is a nice selection of colors though, DIMcyclist. I could find no info on their website as to what kind of paint it is. No mention of what to thin it with. I presume it's enamel? Also, what does it cost to ship from the UK? Thx.

I assumed it was enamel, but I haven't actually checked.

The neat thing about RAL codes is that most of them have Pantone equivalents, so there's further matching you can do there, and if you have your frame custom painted, repainted, or powder coated, the new paint will almost always have an RAL or Pantone code.

If you have a keen eye, sometimes you can tell by sight. For example, last week I locked up my newly powder coated Trek right next to a brand new Disc Trucker and noticed that Surly's current "Super Dark Green" is- exactly- RAL 6012 'Black Green': the same shade of Royal Mail Green that I'd just had my Trek painted.