I'm looking to give my Kobe Ti a bit of love now that she's spent around 5 years under me. It originally came with a lacquer which has worn off in places, especially the top tube from muddy shorts and I quite like the matt silver finish. So how do I get the rest of the frame down to this bare Ti finish without damaging it? Shot blasting? Acid dipping?
I seem to remember a thread years ago about this but nothing appeared in the search. I think they had done it to a Morning Glory.
Nitromors should take laquer off, then just polish it up
I had a Morning Glory and had several finishes on it. When I got it it was the dull grey finish of normal ti and I had it highly polished which looked fab and stayed shiny coz ti is a lot tougher than ally and doesn't tarnish.
I then had it powder coated and when I got rid of it I had it shot blasted and the finish was quite rough but very grey ti in appearance. It would have looked great if it was clear powder coated before it lost its colour due to oxidisation.
To keep the finish you could strip the remaining lacquer off using nitromors paint stripper (the lacquer is a bit poo to be honest) and then burnish it with either wire wool or scotchbrite pads.
Gil at the Cycle Shed does a mean line in stickers for Dialled bikes. I've had several sets off him including some that flouresced (like Mavic wheel decals) and he can do them in old and new style fonts. You can find him at gil@thecycleshed.co.uk
Also Geoff Moorehouse very cool metal head tube badges and you can get him on gemo@f2s.com
Hope this helps
Ken
I tried Nitromorse on my MG it didnt touch it. Mine got blasted and then hand polished. Way more effort than I imagined.
Thanks all. Will look into getting it blasted. When you hand polished Scruff did you use anything special?
Ken - Thanks but I'm going for the minimal no stickers look.
Looks good Scruff
Nitromors and about a days with of polishing with some Scotchbrite pads on my MG.
polished professionally
Bead blasting titanium does more than clean the surface it can stress relieve it. Stress relieving helps prevent surface cracks forming. Polished titanium therefore does not have the benefit of bead blasting. There are different blast media glass beads, grit, sand and soda.
Yes titanium does disolve in acid, nitric acid and hydrochloric acid is most effective.
Ginja-
Im a bit special.
I had a broken wrist so had lots of time to experiment, tried lemon juice, rough T cut stuff, scotchpads, drill mounted spinny things, but my dads little electric sander was best with various grades of Wet& Dry was best . I had to polish out the slight pitting from blasting, I think he used blasty stuff that was too heavy, good as a key for primer but not polishing. Serpantly Autosol was good to use as a final finish.
Oh, and unfortunately my MG frame finished its life in Verbier, at least it had a good send off.
Duraglit/Brasso! The wool/polish in a tin job from Tesco will get your Ti looking incredibly shiny to mirror glass finish. I found out accidently and not to my liking. I was trying to get rid of the 'tide mark' left by front mech when changed to compact and lowered mech.
Having done a few steel frames now, I'll just be droping them straight off at the powdercoaters from now on, nitromorsing a frame is a shitty job, followed by hours of sanding, when a PCer will just chuck it in an oven, blast of whats left, and vapour degrease it for £30, then coat it for another £20.
I could drop it off saturday morning, go into work, do 4 hours overtime and pick uit up at lunchtime still being in profit!
hmm, not sure about the ultra polished look. Just want it down to the metal. An even dull finish would be nice.
Does sound a bit more scary now. Maybe I'll just leave it.
thisisnotaspoon - won't the oven damage it? Or is it a fairly low temp.
About 4 minutes in
An even dull finish would be nice.
i just rubbed down with the stainless steel pan scourers you get in the supermarket - no lacquer but i didn't like the transfers - it just took time and is matt dull
i'd be careful with scotch pads not sure if stainless or not - wouldn't fancy brown streaks of iron rust first time out in rain
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