If you read our blog you will find other examples similar to this fracture repair and restoration. The image is unfortunately inline with the handbars so we get a few per year. This is for a Sigma Sport client.

Many who searched online for a resolution to this issue are in for not-so-good news – It was a bad idea from the start to clear lacquer any naked carbon. Don’t get confused between shiny moulded race car surfaces. These are not painted. Only a well polished high pressure mold can create this clean finish. When carbon was first used in bike manufacturing they understandably wanted to show the material off. The problem with carbon is the waxy resin surface which forms as an outer skin on the frame which cannot hold clear lacquers for very long. A bit like trying to spray onto nylon..There are a few clear coat primers out there but none very effective as far as we know.

The modern way to show carbon weave is to tint the carbon with a darker primer. This provides better grip and you can just about see the grain coming through. My advice is if you like your blistering frame then the best way would be to go this route but please don’t attempt a fresh clear lacquer respray. You are throwing good money after bad.

EXPRESS SERVICE DOWNTUBE REPAIR & RESTORE

A roof rack incident has left this Wilier damaged in a highly detailed section of the downtube. The client required his bike to be repaired within 1 week if possible so he could attend a race in Europe the following week. We managed to repair, test and restore the graphics to original within a few days.

Guess which one? The other is an original finish.

It must be Colnago week for complex repairs. This frame suffered a massive head-on collision but after a full thermo scan we were able to confirm that only the head tube lugs and tube ends were damaged making it an economical repair. Lug bonded joints are always slighly more tricky to repair as you have 2 sets of repairs as opposed to only the tube intersections of a monocoque. We replaced and repaired the lugs in the traditional manner, rebonded and stress tested the frame slightly beyond the required pressures. Only once passed QC’d was it paint restored with particle specific Colnago metallic blue and flat white colours to finish the frame to perfection.

Yet another would-be-trashed bike with a safe new lease of life.

Written off, 2 major fractures, sheered seat post at the front mech moulding and chain stay snapped in half. Can it really come back to life and retain its original value??

It sure can. Nothing can replace qualified carbon technicians and sprayers. The repairs and paint restoration are indetectable using thermographic imaging and ultrasound. No wonder Colnago want CarbonBikeRepair to do all their restoration work in the UK.

We had to make sure that when we promise we can restore this that we do it back to factory finish. Chain stay fracture and factory finish restore