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