It's inevitable: I get a shiny car bike or car or whatever, and within a week I'm seeing scratches in the paint. In this particular case, however, the bike is a Raleigh Venture with a steel frame, so I can't just curse at the scratches -- I need to cover them.

I've heard a few different suggestions on this topic. My LBS recommends nail polish. The Raleigh website recommends the enamel hobby paint used on plastic model airplanes. But since the Venture sports a dark metallic-blue paint job, I'm wondering if I might not have better luck matching the color with a shade of automobile touch-up paint.

What's good, and what isn't?

I don't worry about cosmetic appearance of my bikes. My bikes are full of dings and scratches.

Same here I have a ton of scratches and so far they haven't slowed me down yet...

The LBS has touch up paint for all the bikes they sell. Chips happen even in the shop.

That said, I once tried touch up paint on my car and I think it looked worse.

Scratches = character marks.


But I have used nail polish on a few.

Model paint, nail polish and auto paint are all fine for touch-ups. If your primary concern is the cosmetics then just try to match with whatever type of paint has the closest tint.

You *might* actually have the best luck with nail polish though since they have tons of different colors and sheen-styles (smooth, metallic, glitter, etc.) available for cheap, it's easy to clean-up or redo if you make a mistake and you don't need to buy any brushes or anything.

I use the same touch up paint they use for cars, sold in any auto parts store or wallyworld.

Just some wax can make some smallish stuff disappear on metallic paint on car in my experience, would assume bikes too.

I thought my new bike's flat black was soooo cool looking but now realizing I don't have a good way of hiding scratches.

Wait a while till there are more scratches and get a brand new paint job from a custom painter who uses automotive paint. By the way did you ever see the You Tube on Colnago paint process?