EricOnHisBike

I may well be in the wrong forum, and for that I apologize. I just felt who would be better able to tell me what I'm seeing with the paint than framebuilders.

I bought a new bike a couple of weeks ago, black for the most part, but in the right light the forks look really weird. On the leading and trailing edges on the forks the paint looks more brown than black. I'm going to contact the bike shop where I bought it, but I was curious if anyone could tell me what this might be. Too me it just looks as if it wasn't painted sufficiently, but I have painted 0 bicycles in my day if you exclude touch-up.

Any thoughts? It's a carbon fork if that matters.

duanedr 

That's just the paint of the fork. Carbon looks like that. I have a couple columbus or 3T forks in boxes that look the same.

Andrew R Stewart 

Black electrical tape hides many omissions and sins

Really, cosmetic stuff is often excluded from warranties. I've had customers want to return a bike because the shade of red wasn't exactly the same as the red ink in the catalog. Andy

prj71

To me it looks like the something rubbed up against the fork...Like the box it was packaged in or something.

sdmc530

I was thinking a shipping rub or something as well. Carbon doesn't look great plain IMO, but others think otherwise.

I think its really ugly actually to be in the plain. If you have no issues with damage its just how it is unless you get it painted. if you think there is some sort of damage have a pro look at it.

Andrew R Stewart 

Shipping paint damage is usually from rubbing/scuffing over many days of travel. An unprotected section of a painted frame/fork contacts the cardboard box interior (or the small parts box floating about in the bike box) and after many cycles of vibration the rough cardboard surface acts like sand paper to the paint and dulls the shine or rubs the paint through to the bare surface. Usually these cosmetic problems will show a gradient of damage along the area. The edges are less abraded and the central portion is more worn away. I don't see this type of "damage" in the photos.

I'll add that a cardboard box usually won't transfer a color to the frame/fork. Or maybe I should say that after unboxing thousands of bikes (mostly new but quite a number of used) over the 45+ years of wrenching in the LBS I have not seen what I would call a color transfer.

I suspect the "paint" on this fork is a translucent type that shows an underlaying color (like a candy color is a translucent layer on top of a base color like silver). As sdmc530 said, not much to do but either accept it or pay for a fork repaint. Andy

EricOnHisBike

Thanks very much everyone for your replies.
I'm a little skeptical of the paint rub explanation. I have checked the bike with that idea in mind and the paint feels completely smooth. I would think that if there had been some abrasion in transit I'd be able to feel it. This feels as if there is clear coat over it. I compared it with my previous road bike that had some cable rub areas and I can definitely feel that. Perhaps it doesn't always work that way. Oh well, not much to be done about it at this point I expect.
Thanks again.