Refinishing carbon parts

[nbfman]

Can anyone here advise on refinishing or painting carbon parts? Specifically, I saw a case where, apparently, a shop removed the finish on a Time carbon fork, painted over parts of it to match the frame, and put a glossy coat on the rest of it so that you could see the carbon weave. I say "apparently" because I'm not really sure what was done. I was wondering about how one typically goes about doing this (sand off the finish?, etc), and how much it can affect the integrity of the part.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Bigbananabike]

If its only the finish that is sanded off (the clearcoat or paint) it shouldn't harm the carbon.

If it was me (and I've done a lot of car etc spraypainting) I would either 2 pot clearcoat the carbon or lightly undercoat / topcoat / clearcoat it depending on what finish I was after.

 

[SlowestCat3]

Along the same lines, I'm interested in stripping an old Trek OCLV frame down to the bare carbon. So you're saying I can just sand lightly and I shouldn't be able to harm the carbon? That sounds better to me than using a chemical stripper - just seems like that might be more detrimental to the carbon.

Thanks,
Tim

 

[531Aussie]

I once sanded down and re-clear-coated an old fork, and it works fine. It was coloured bright yellow, but I wanted to use it on another bike, so I went for the 'natural' carbon look. I just used a cheap clear spray from an auto parts shop

I was actually surprised at how good the result was