Drukas

Morning

Wanted to pick peoples brains if possible or see if anyone else has done this. Got Carbon frame, which was I want to give a once over and looking good again. There are a few small marks/scratches that don't seem too deep on it that I want to try and polish/sand out. Was thinking about using wet and dry 2000/3000 paper to clear the marks and then hopefully I wouldn't have gone too deep to remove the clear coat and can simply polish afterwards.

Has anyone done this? What kind of results did you get?

Thanks

Iride01 

Just clean them out with some solvent. Acetone or xylene would be what I'd grab, since they are on my shelf. Be careful not to get it on the rest of the finish, unless you know what the rest of the finish is.

Apply some clear coat or color match and they'll probably pretty much disappear. Unless you think everyone is going to look as closely as you at your bike.

TakingMyTime

I have a 2002 Trek 5200. It was in pretty bad shape when I got it. All the decals were torn and there were several minor nicks in the carbon frame but noth8ing severe enough to warrant any kind of repair. I can't remember exactly but I started out with something like 600 or 800 griit and then went 800 > 1000 > 1500 > 2000 then rubbing compound, polish and wax. I was very happy with the results. Don't' quote me on the exact grits that I used but I remember using somewhat of a sequence like above.

Drukas

Cheers. I'll give it a clean up using acetone first and then see what the state of play is after that.

topflightpro

I had a carbon post that was glossy with decals. I didn't like how it looked on my matte frame and did not like the color of the decals, so I got light sandpaper and wet sanded it down to remove the decals and gloss. I then gave it a quick respray of clear matte paint.

It was fine. There was ample clear coat on there, so I never got to the actual carbon fiber.

Your frame probably has several layers of paint, but in sanding it, you may end up taking off all layers of paint, exposing the carbon. That isn't necessarily bad or dangerous, but it might not look good.

tempocyclist

Interesting! I might have to try this.

I've been pretty hesitant to take sandpaper to my bike thus far! I've got some small general wear marks on my 2002 5200 also that I wouldn't mind smoothing out.

TakingMyTime

Just make sure you set aside some time to do it properly. I would suggest tearing the bike down completely to the frame and then do each grit for a couple of days. Once you start to hand sand down into all the curves and corners it can take a little time. I didn't do any repainting, I just polishedd up the "smoke" carbon as best I could. No filler or touch up paint used.

tempocyclist

^ Looks fantastic! I've got a replacement decal set, so one day I might strip it down again and either sand out the imperfections or go the whole hog and have it resprayed.