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Chrome Paint Pen -- I think this may work!

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Old 03-21-23, 07:44 PM
  #26  
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Might try hearing up the pen with a heat gun/hair dryer before applying. Old RC trick, makes the paint flow better.
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Old 03-21-23, 08:03 PM
  #27  
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Originally Posted by Andy_K
In fact, I can now tell you that alcohol will take it off of metal very efficiently too.

I got impatient and decided to see if it was still pliable enough that I could press the edges out of it. That made it dull, so I rubbed it down with Maguires. That made it worse, so I decided to clean it up and give it another coat. I used rubbing alcohol as prep, and "poof" bare chrome, blemish and all.
I wonder if it is given some gentle heat if it will cure a bit more.
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Old 03-21-23, 09:07 PM
  #28  
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Old 03-22-23, 12:02 AM
  #29  
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Originally Posted by jdawginsc
Looks like my chrome challenged Ciocc is set to go!
that's what I plan to try my pen on (if it passes the tests): a Ciocc San Cristobal that had all chrome media-blasted away and the plain vanilla powder-coat just did not satisfy
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Old 03-22-23, 02:06 AM
  #30  
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Originally Posted by rccardr
Might try hearing up the pen with a heat gun/hair dryer before applying. Old RC trick, makes the paint flow better.
I can see I’m going to need about half a dozen forks to try all the various techniques that are being suggested in various combinations. I might eventually get this turned into something useful.
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Old 03-25-23, 05:19 PM
  #31  
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I bought “chrome” spray paint to bling out my toe strap buttons. What a waste. It was just flat silver.

Got this pen today, and honestly I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s as close to chrome as you’re going to find outside of a chrome shop.

Thanks for passing along this discovery, Andy!
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Old 03-25-23, 06:22 PM
  #32  
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I bought one of these pens after reading the OP. They really are nice. I'll get a lot of use out of it. Thanks.
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Old 03-31-23, 04:16 PM
  #33  
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I wanted to share a few updates and encourages others who are trying this to also share their experiences.

I'm still working with the same spot on the fork crown. My second try was decent, but if you looked really closely you could see the difference in texture. A try at smoothing that out with a polishing wheel proved to be too aggressive. In less than a second it rub through to the bare chrome. Since then, I've been trying the various suggestions involving heat, while also experimenting with applying a thick layer of the paint. This seems to be a bad combination. I'm making too many simultaneous changes for a scientific analysis, but it appears that the higher temperature is causing the surface layer of the paint to dry too quickly, creating a semi-hard outer layer before the paint has had a chance to self-level.

I brought the frame into a heated room off of my garage -- about 75 degrees. I tried heating the pen and heating the surface, but either way I'm still getting a lot of visible variation in the surface level, and unlike when I had the bike in the cold garage it isn't smoothing itself out overnight. After the first night, seeing the wavy surface I tried intentionally putting down a lot of extra paint. That left a very wavy surface. After a couple of days I tried wet sanding that to get it smooth. That worked but it lost its shine. I might have been able to bring the shine back with a bit of polishing. That usually works with glossy enamel paint. In this case, a preliminary experiment that I had done earlier didn't seem promising.

At this point I'm going to move the bike back out to the garage and see if another layer on top of what I have will level it out again.

How is it working for everyone else?
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Old 03-31-23, 04:45 PM
  #34  
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Originally Posted by cyclo_girl
Bloody genius. Just ordered one
Nice to see you here at Bike Forums, welcome!

***** ***** has a very nice collection of curated vintage bicycles and parts for sale at her website. I encourage you to take a look.
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Old 04-12-23, 02:20 PM
  #35  
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Another update. I'm still trying to figure out the technique for this. I've used rubbing alcohol to start from scratch several times. After the paint has been sitting for a couple of days, alcohol doesn't wipe it off as easily. On the first attempt, it feels kind of sticky and leaves a bit of residue. A few more sprays and a bit of scrubbing gets it off. I think this is probably telling me something about curing time.

I tried using the pen on a paper surface before applying it to the bike so I wouldn't have any droplets on the pen surface and then attempting to put down a very thin surface. That did leave a thin, smooth surface but the shine and color wasn't even. It looked very streaky (sorry, no pictures). Last night I tried intentionally putting down a couple of big drops of paint (you can do this by pressing down on the pen body while the "point" is on the fork crown) and then using the pen to spread it around. That's kind of what I did the first time around, and the results are very similar.



There's a bit of a drip-like blob in the lower right corner. It was bad last night. This afternoon it's much better. I've got the bike in the workstand with the fork crown sloped down away from this spot, and I'm hoping it's still got enough viscosity left to level itself completely. If not, I honestly might be happy with it the way it is. That's a terribly harsh picture and looks like I applied some kind of digital art effect, but I didn't. That's a fender you're seeing under the fork crown, which gives you a point of reference for the level of flaw exposure here. You can see there are still some tiny air bubble pop spots.

Here's a pic from a different angle that looks much nicer.



That's more representative of the impression I get when I look at the bike. And if you're standing up and just glancing down at the fork crown, it looks more like this.



So, yeah, from three feet with 50+ year-old eyes, it looks absolutely perfect. My rattle can paint job definitely won't be better than that.
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Old 04-12-23, 04:53 PM
  #36  
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Originally Posted by cocoabeachcrab
i can tell you first hand that this one is fantastic.. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/b0...?ie=utf8&psc=1
it's a 5 footer for sure! Maybe even 3 feet if you are over 65! 6 inches after half a bottle of fish eye pino grigio... I have spoken.

lol
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Old 04-12-23, 06:56 PM
  #37  
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Great product.
I have been using for a few years to patch some of my bikes chrome blemishes and other bits like nice dura ace pedals that still work great but got scratched up from contact.
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Old 04-12-23, 07:40 PM
  #38  
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Now they need to make smoke chrome / black chrome variants to match the High Sierra, etc.
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Old 04-12-23, 09:44 PM
  #39  
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Originally Posted by madpogue
Now they need to make smoke chrome / black chrome variants to match the High Sierra, etc.

I am in desperate need for a pen like this but with gold. My dad‘s old Colnago Oro flaking pretty bad. Can you imagine the price of gold plating these days.
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Old 04-12-23, 10:42 PM
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Originally Posted by joesch
Great product.
I have been using for a few years to patch some of my bikes chrome blemishes and other bits like nice dura ace pedals that still work great but got scratched up from contact.
Got any tips for getting best results?
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Old 04-13-23, 06:47 AM
  #41  
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Originally Posted by Andy_K
Got any tips for getting best results?
Clean and dry surface. A brillo pad helps rough up a little for better grip for paint chrome.
Have notrccardr suggestion to heat up, sounds like it may help aswell.
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Old 04-13-23, 08:23 AM
  #42  
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Originally Posted by Robvolz
I am in desperate need for a pen like this but with gold. My dad‘s old Colnago Oro flaking pretty bad. Can you imagine the price of gold plating these days.
Don't know if it will work as well as the chrome ones mentioned in this thread, but I found this on Amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BP1ZZQCW...lig_dp_it&th=1
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Old 04-13-23, 08:33 AM
  #43  
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I JUST ordered the pen from the OP suggestion.

I have a few chips in my chrome fork and never could find chrome mirror finish.

Thank you. for sharing this GREAT info !!!!!!!

I'll keep all posted.
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Old 04-15-23, 09:34 AM
  #44  
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Originally Posted by Andy_K
I've seen this topic pop up a few times on this forum. I can't remember anyone actually being happy with the results, but I decided to try it anyway. I've got a bike with a blemish in the chrome on the fork crown. An attempt to polish it out left a smooth, but ugly spot. The bike needs repainting, and I've been debating whether to leave the ugly fork crown bare (as a tribute to the bike's history), paint it over, or have it re-chromed. There's something to be said for each of these approaches. Having it re-chromed is what I really wanted, but I'm going to try a home paint job on this bike for now, so I thought, why not try a home chrome repair too? So, I shelled out $11 for a generic chrome paint pen from Amazon.

Here's the before pic, showing the damaged area.



My first attempt with the paint pen was to just slap a bunch on there and see how it went. I did this last night, and I went to bed thinking I'd have to clean it off and start over.



But when I woke up this morning, I found that the paint had smoothed itself quite a bit in the drying process. Here it is with no additional work whatsoever since the above picture.



In person, it looks even better than that. I don't see the tiny dots that are all over the crown in this picture. Notice that the brake also shows a few such spots in the picture. In fact, looking down at it from a normal standing position, I think it looks just as good as the other side. I'll give it a few days to cure and then maybe try to polish it a bit. I may even start over to get rid of that edge where I didn't cover the crown entirely. But right now I'm very happy with the results. It's no substitute for new chrome, but as a cheap fix this doesn't look half bad.

I've got another bike with flaking chrome on the chainstays. Expect an update on that some time this summer.
Hey Andy

Did you use a certain technique/application process???

Looks great !!!!!
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Old 04-15-23, 05:57 PM
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Originally Posted by bikemike73
Did you use a certain technique/application process???
The best I've done so far is described in this post: https://www.bikeforums.net/22857939-post35.html

I'm still trying to dial it in. The fork crown is challenging because it's a smooth, level surface. I've got another bike with chipped chrome on the chainstay that I think might be easier because it's got an empty area to fill in. Of course, getting it level with the real chrome might be a whole different challenge.
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Old 04-15-23, 06:08 PM
  #46  
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Any idea what is in the pen? Is there a MSDS sheet?

Originally Posted by nlerner
And how many pens would it take to do an entire bike? I'm thinking that @AdventureManCO might want to consider this option for his Huffy project.
It is possible that the pen has Silver Nitrate in it. It can be sprayed on a large surface, but the videos showing the process indicate a process of spraying the silver nitrate, then washing with water and repeating for several coats.
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Old 12-22-23, 06:47 PM
  #47  
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Inspired by Andy_K and his chrome paint pen, I decided to spend the $9 and order one on Amazon.

The stays on my recently acquired Merckx were in bad shape. Best I can guess is that the previous owner hung it upside down and moisture clung to it. Not sure.

I used Evaporust gel two times, then hit it with the old crumpled tin foil and water. Prepped with alcohol and a scouring pad, and then gave the pen a try. It's not perfect, but hell, it's way better.

Plan is to let it dry for a couple days, then seal it up with turtle wax. Longer term I'll probably sand it to the bare metal and repeat this process, but with some heat and more care.






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Old 12-23-23, 06:06 PM
  #48  
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"Inspired by Andy_K and his chrome paint pen........ It's not perfect, but hell, it's way better."

Dang, the difference is Yuge!!! I have a couple of bikes with some spots of rusty chrome that could use this treatment...... Thanks
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Old 12-23-23, 08:29 PM
  #49  
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AndyK or anyone else able to report on the long term performance of this material (paint)?
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Old 12-24-23, 02:53 AM
  #50  
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Unfortunately, I have no long term report. When I repainted the fork that I was working with at the start of this thread, I decided to leave the blemish as it was, having taken the chrome paint off with rubbing alcohol before painting the fork.

I've got another bike in mind that I'll try this with that has flaking chrome on the chainstays. I might even come back to the fork on the Mercian. One of my attempts looked really good. I just didn't leave well enough alone.
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