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!
