spot rust removing w/o damaging surounding paint

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by Feld
i have an old trek 500 from way back. it has a cro-moly
frame. i live in brooklyn and the seasons here do hell to a
frame alog with the constant use of a heavy duty chain lock.
i have a group of small nicks in the clearcoat and paint
from the chain hitting the frame that have rusted. i now
wrap parts of my frame that get hit by the chain with old
inner tubes and it works wonders. however, this doesnt get
rid of the old rusted dings from before.

any advice on how to get rid of the small spots of rust w/o
damaging the surrounding paint?

thanks!

Dremel tool with abrasive "bit" down to metal. Clean with mineral spirits, spot paint with auto touch up or if matching color is still available from bike manufacturer.

feld said:

i have an old trek 500 from way back. it has a cro-moly
frame. i live in brooklyn and the seasons here do hell to
a frame alog with the constant use of a heavy duty chain
lock. i have a group of small nicks in the clearcoat and
paint from the chain hitting the frame that have rusted. i
now wrap parts of my frame that get hit by the chain with
old inner tubes and it works wonders. however, this doesnt
get rid of the old rusted dings from before.

any advice on how to get rid of the small spots of rust
w/o damaging the surrounding paint?

The British touring cyclist's preferred method is to wait
until the frame looks really horrible, then send it for bead
blasting and re-enamelling. They can match the decals and
everything these days. A re-enamel every 5-10 years isn't
unusual for a cherished steel frame.

(feld) said:

i have an old trek 500 from way back. it has a cro-moly
frame. i have a group of small nicks in the clearcoat and
paint from the chain hitting the frame that have rusted.
... any advice on how to get rid of the small spots of rust
w/o damaging the surrounding paint?

I have one of these frames - a 1985 model in dark fuschia.
First, the paint flakes off if you just look at it, so the
enamling idea is actually a pretty good one.

Second, mine got bent so I might suggest that you sell yours
to me cheap and go get a new frame (yours is a 23" or
bigger, isn't it ??)

Third, I was a Nissan dealer last week and they had an
outrageously expensive kit that would let you "smooth over"
the high edges left by a touchup job, which makes it very
difficult to see a touchup job even if you are looking at
the specular reflections from sunlight shining on the
surface of the paint (e.g. the paint is level after touchup
so there is no reflectivity difference at any angle.) This
kit did not require sanding. You might want to look online
for kits such as this.

- Don Gillies San Diego, CA

Hi Feld, I'm surpirsed no one else has suggested this, and
this may be an unusual way to beat the rust, but have to
ever heard of a product called "Naval Jelly"?

I would imagine a place such as Home Depot/Lowes would sell
this product (or something similar) Where you just brush the
product onto the rust, and it converts the rust to a
paintable surface. Then after using this, you can go about
touching up yout bike with a suitable touch up paint?

Might be worth a try, and should hold back the rust for a
while. Mark

[email hidden] (feld) wrote in message
news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

i have an old trek 500 from way back. it has a cro-moly
frame. i live in brooklyn and the seasons here do hell to
a frame alog with the constant use of a heavy duty chain
lock. i have a group of small nicks in the clearcoat and
paint from the chain hitting the frame that have rusted. i
now wrap parts of my frame that get hit by the chain with
old inner tubes and it works wonders. however, this doesnt
get rid of the old rusted dings from before.

any advice on how to get rid of the small spots of rust
w/o damaging the surrounding paint?

thanks!

Hi Don, A product I have been using on my vehicle for
leveling touch up paint blobs is called Langka. It's
relatively inexpensive, and though it's been designed for
auto use, there's no reason this wouldn't work quite well
for Bikes, motorcycles, or whatever.

After touch-up, you let the paint dry, then use the Langka,
and a thin clean T-shirt stretched over a plastic card, then
apply a drop of Langka, and begin to level/rub the "Blob"
till its level, and blends
in. Apparently, most touch up paints are claimed to be
Laquer, and the Langka will remove this, without
affecting/harming the original finish.

I don't have the URL handy, but I'd be guessing that its
www.langka.com Mark

Quoted message said:

Third, I was a Nissan dealer last week and they had an
outrageously expensive kit that would let you "smooth
over" the high edges left by a touchup job, which makes it
very difficult to see a touchup job even if you are
looking at the specular reflections from sunlight shining
on the surface of the paint (e.g. the paint is level after
touchup so there is no reflectivity difference at any
angle.) This kit did not require sanding. You might want
to look online for kits such as this.

- Don Gillies San Diego, CA

Dear Mark, For background: I fix up and sell used bikes,
repair bikes including what I call a "paint tune-up" and do
custom painting. My experience shows that the most
important appearance aspect of a bike is how good it looks
as a person approaches it. The decision whether it
basically a good looking bike is made from about ten feet
away. This includes the owner who already knows what the
bike looks like close-up.

Up close is important for expensive new-looking bikes, but
if there is a significant amount of damage, getting it to
look new again is basically a matter of the same kind of
bodywork and expense that it takes to repaint a fender on
your car, except it is much harder to match the base color.
At that point it is generally cheaper and gives better
results to strip and refinish. Around here powder coating is
very popular as it is not so fragile and the baking process
ensures there is no hidden rust. Paints are only used by
custom painters like me who are doing exotic multi layer
pearls, candies, chameleons, and fancy airbrush decoration.

Rust Removal and Touch-up I have some Naval Jelly and it
does work. Unfortunately, the instructions say not to allow
it to touch painted areas because it removes paint. I have
not tested the paint removal qualities, but it did take the
rust of an old freewheel very nicely.

I use fingernail polish to fix the dings on my and my
customer's bikes. Most colors are available except for
yellows and for bikes, the cheap stuff works as well as the
expensive. It is dry here in Colorado so rust isn't too much
of a problem, but if I was up against a rust problem, I
would take a pointy tool of some sort an scrape the pit
before spotting it. If the rust were truly severe, I would
also dry the pit with acetone (watch out for your paint!)
and blow dry it before putting on the nail polish.

Another solution would be to use Rustoleum paints. they have
a special compound in them that penetrates the rust and
prevents (or at least slows) recurrence of the rust. I'd
spray it into the cap for the can, let it dry a little so it
is not so fluid, and dab it on with a small brush. You could
even use their primer first, but that seems like overkill.

There is also a product called "Rust Reformer" that converts
rust to a non-reactive primer for solvent-based paints. I
have some, but haven't tried
it. The instructions say to just paint it on, let it sit for
something like a half hour and paint over it with
solvent based paint.

I think the discussion about leveling the paint blobs is
interesting, but I think it is overkill unless you are
planning on giving up the lock, which also implies bike
racks and use in an urban area, all of which are hard on
paint. Most bikes have a thick paint letter composed of a
primer, a base coat, the color coat and a clear coat. As
thick as that is, I find it is often more of a problem to
fill the ding up to level than to remove the excess. If
you are putting paint on top of the surrounding paint, it
will stick up, but careful use of a small brush can
confine the paint to the damaged area. If I am fixing a
long thin scratch, I will paint the scratch, then take a
quick swipe with my finger to level it. The resulting thin
smear can be left as is, removed with thinner or polished
with cleaner wax.

I have had several bikes with paint that would shatter and
pop off with the slightest ding and found that the
improvement based on simply filling the dings with paint
that was close to the right color was impressive. It was
also easy enough that I would do it regularly. With a bottle
or two of the right fingernail polish, I could catch the
dings as I got them and prevent rust altogether.

"Mark" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Hi Feld, I'm surpirsed no one else has suggested this, and
this may be an unusual way to beat the rust, but have to
ever heard of a product called "Naval Jelly"?

I would imagine a place such as Home Depot/Lowes would
sell this product (or something similar) Where you just
brush the product onto the rust, and it converts the
rust to a paintable surface. Then after using this, you
can go about touching up yout bike with a suitable touch
up paint?

Might be worth a try, and should hold back the rust for a
while. Mark

[email hidden] (feld) wrote in message

news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

i have an old trek 500 from way back. it has a cro-moly
frame. i live in brooklyn and the seasons here do hell
to a frame alog with the constant use of a heavy duty
chain lock. i have a group of small nicks in the
clearcoat and paint from the chain hitting the frame
that have rusted. i now wrap parts of my frame that get
hit by the chain with old inner tubes and it works
wonders. however, this doesnt get rid of the old rusted
dings from before.

any advice on how to get rid of the small spots of rust
w/o damaging the surrounding paint?

thanks!