I keep looking at my bike frame and can’t help thinkingitI needs to be personalised with some gold. Not the whole frame, just some decoration. I have a few gold leaf books but am a little worried by the gold size. The one I use is not water based, more like varnish, designed for outdoor use.
Anyone on here painted a carbon frame with none water based paints?
Would the size melt carbon or react with it in any way?

pedantic answer: only way to melt carbon is to get it to over 3500degC 😉

The resin part is epoxy which is generally pretty much resistant to most things. Fume cabinet bases are often made of it if you need any evidence. There is a worry with painting some crash helmets but they were probably polyester resin.

You normally use solvent based 2k paints on carbon anyway. It should list the solvents on your data sheet or MSDS if you can find it and do a quick google for epoxy resistance but there is a slight worry about any thermoplastic tougheners which my be in the epoxy but I wouldnt worry too much about that unless you are soaking the frame in the solvent for days.

Or just use a different sizing. If you post the name I can take a look at the chemicals.

Thanks for the reply.
The size is Charbonnel Mixtion 3 hours.
I’ve not had problems with the size on any other materials. Just being overly cautious on something I might be travelling quite fast on.

It’s basically petrol by the looks of it, well the solvent is anyway.

Shouldn’t be a problem (no guarantees though of course, it’s your own risk) but petrol and kerosene don’t normally pose a problem to epoxy and decent engineering plastics. I am guessing you are not covering the whole frame anyway or that would be a bit bling.

http://www.kem.no/files/kem.no/Documents/Datablader/Datablader%20Charbonnel/3H%20OIL%20GOLD%20SIZE%20GB.pdf

Thanks for the info. All very helpful.
I’m not planning much but will try a small test piece first. Where it will end up, I’m not so sure.