'90, Original rims, white, and chipped...touchup?

I have some chipped paint areas (small, here and there, tool marks probably) on my original white rims. Man I love those things! I probably bought the bike just because...anyway.

Has any one ever touched up the color successfully with anything off the shelve?
Anyone have any insight or approach to take for application or technique?

I know the color is referred to as Ross White. Haven't looked at the OEM option yet.

 

If there are not many and they are small, then do your best to match the colour. A small chip even with the less than perfect paint colour match would look better fixed than left as is. But if you have a whole pile of chips, why not just go get it media blasted and re powder coated? Probably cost you about 125 bucks or so.

 

Remember, nail polish has every color ever made

 

I did not know that. This is one reason why this forum is so great Duc. We can learn from the common daily experiences of others. What's your fav?

 

The way I figured this out was back in the eighties when I bought my 84 Interceptor and someone keyed my tank, since I was dating a hair dresser, I went to the pedicure chicky and she gave me about 10 different shades....found one that matched perfect.....
So Red is bub

 

Duc man probably has little taste in nail polish. IMO, you should wait for SOW to supply some real feedback from his string of shemales.

Some painters tricks with nail polish. Got a chip in a porcelain sink. 4 or 5 coats of nail polish will fill and match that rusty spot. Nail polish remover is adequate thinner/reducer for nail poish. Nail polish sticks fine to chipped areas on bikes as long as the wax is removed first. The trick to application is to not use the brush that comes in the half oz bottle. Best to get a small natural bristle inexpensive artists brush and use that. Another applicartor that works well is a Qtip. The thinner/reducer that works best on these acrylic lacquers is lacquer thinner. Cleans the brush too.



Crunching some numbers, nail polish even the stuff from WalMart is some of the worlds most expensive paint. Lets say a half oz bottle is two pesos. There are 256 half ounces in a gallon of nail polish. Two pesos gets ya the cheap stuff. Yep, some of the paints from House of Kolor costs more but ya can't buy a half oz..

Sometimes unless one is so anal as to not wanting to be seen with chips (OMG!!) in their paint, small areas can be touched up with nail polish or one of the small kit type applicators or a small amount of OEM type paint from one of the suppliers. A dead on match is many times not possible and close is better than a high contrast color showing through as a visual picture.

For the dudes who want to use the stuff on their nails I say go for it and post up some pix too..

 

It's about rust, not cosmetics people. F'ing rust...unless you've never lived in FL, give that shit an opening and it will eat your bike/car alive. Seriously.
Duccmann, I'm on it, excellent. And may I say the avatar is outstanding! BadBilly, the application approach, I got it, thanks.

 

I say you should get rid of those chipped up wheels. I'll trade you for my black ones.

 

If my memory from those absolutely crazy times, think I used a toothpick. .funny as it seems, filled the gash perfectly. .small dabs till it was even.
BB, you crack me up..never know which way your goin to go...and how dare you even mention puss n boots in response.
LMFAO bub

 

Using fast drying paints like nail polish, I have found it's best to apply the stuff using several coats instead of one bigass blob.

Yep on that toothpick too..

Rust spots can be cleaned up. Once iron has started to oxidize it's sort of forever. There are products on the market that convert iron oxide to another compound. I use a stuff called "Corroseal" . A little goes a long way.

To get iron to rust on something other than a bike.. slosh on some regular household bleach.

 

Jeez, if I ride my bike to work, it gets covered, I wipe them down after every ride and have zero rust problems. The few dents & scratches that I that I chose to leave alone on a gas tank have never evolved into a bigger spot. Your wheels are aluminum, you would have to have a jewelers loop to see corrosion on a "said" paint chip imho. I happened to get a white 93 that has the white wheels your talking about, it was a neglected bike and I think it might have been left in a flood as I had black discoloration on the wheels which looked like a standing water line. Anyway, no chemicals I tried would get the stains off, I used some 1200 paper with some alcohol which dumbed down the stains, If you look at them with a florecent light, you might see some swirl marks. Oh, my 91 rear wheel which is gold has scratches and chips and on a scale of 1-10, I give it a 7ish. It never "rusted" and was exposed to the chit winters of NJ for half of its life. I had a friend in South Fl that lived on the "River" which was salt and all his tools in his box would rust except the "Snap-On" ones.

Now if you polish you aluminum frame your gona set yourself up for some serious corrosion and maintenance. Anyway, look at it this way, you got the best generation of those bikes :thumbsup: even a dog looks good if "its" dressed. :loco: Oh, love the rusted allen heads on them HD bikes ridden by all those posers, nice thing I did on my commuter bike was switch to them fancy delancy "torx" screws for some of the fairing bolts. Cheers

 

I had never heard of a jeweler's loop [sic] so I looked it up:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loupe

Ah, I've seen that a million times in popular media but never knew its name. I learn so much here.

I could not read some of that printing on the back of DVDs so I bought a 5-part magnifier, similar to this although cheap quality. This type of thing is in fact a great tool to have around for all of these uses.

 

Invest in a good "head-light" its for your head. No pun or weird thing should be interpreted from this. I go for (shameless-plug here) Streamlght as they are guaranteed for life and an excellent product. You do burn through batteries but nothing is as good as hand free seeing. I can read without glasses but have a pair of 125s and a pair of 300s for some serious magnification.

Lets see what "sow" has to say, can you tell I have some time on my hands today :loco: life is gud, Gona run one of my viffers out to the post office, cheers...

 

Dirt bikes? Kidding! But then I looked up Streamlight and they have an "Enduro" as well!

Great stuff, I added one to my Amazon wish list. This is a great all-around use item that I have known I needed my entire life.

 

Aluminum doesn't rust. It like most other metals and the (bigass number here) alloys of same, oxidizes. In a marine environment oxidation can happen fast. Humidity levels and temps affect the rate too.

The wheels on the mach 1 91 got chipped too. They got new paint aboot a year after I bought the bike. More paintwork aboot 4 years ago. I might do another whole paintjob on it come Winter.

Loupes come in all sizes and shapes. Some are of fixed focal length or magnification. like linen and photo loupes. Prices are all over the map depending on the manufacturer. Some of the optics are now plastic. The good stuff that is used to make lens's for eyeglasses.

SOW OTOH is a Fruitloop. Fruitloops are Cheerios in drag. SOW OD's on All Bran and craps on almost every thread. No apologies to Kellog he was a case too. Cornflakes and high colonics...