Hi,
I have just bought a new Santa Cruz Highball frame and only gone and scratched it…virtually straight away. Is this scratch anything to worry about. It scrapped on a rock pretty damn hard.

https://ibb.co/f9c9S7g

Cheers,
James

It’ll be reet. Bit of touch up and your’e good.

When I’ve finished building a new bike first thing I do is chuck it down a gravely hill to get over that ‘first scratch’ anxiety.

Ouch!

I have never owned a carbon frame before so this scratch hurts big time. I’m just worried it seems to have gone through a lay of the material.

It’s the not knowing. I scratched one in 2016 or so… kept having visions but it must have been OK. In fact the frame gets used WELL outside it’s “tech spec” limits so if anything was going to happen…. (famous last words)… after a while I just forgot about it.

It’s fine, you’ve only lost some paint, my 3 year old Bronson has a fair few of those!

It looks fine to me.

Are you sure it’s ‘rock’ damage though? It looks more like shoe rub (or something-rub).
I would check & if it is something rubbing, get some helitape on it to prevent it getting worse.

I’d definitely agree, looks like a rub.

Looks more like a gouge than a bit of rub. How deep is it?

Probably two mm

If you contact Jungle or Santa Cruz they should have a pretty good idea what the wall thickness should be in that area. As it’s by the BB junction the walls will be thicker and you may be OK – if it was in the centre of the tube you’d probably be looking straight through it as a hole at 2mm. If it bothers you then it should be easily repairable anyway, some carbon filler to strengthen and reduce the possibility for it to cause a stress riser – a good place can touch up with paint to match and you’d never know it was there.

There must be some sort of law of the Sods to govern this sort of thing, I did a similar thing to a carbon 5010 on the 2nd ever ride out, massive slate pinged up and smacked downtube leaving gouge and tiny crack (mines been fine since as just surface)…did feel I must’ve offended the Karma Police at sometime…

Oblig: https://www.pinkbike.com/video/243228/
(skip 5 minutes in, then chill out, relax, have a beer and plan your next ride 🙂 )

I did something similar when I got my 5010cc, first ride out and the bike rack rubbed the paint off the down tube where it wasn’t tighted up properly… absolutely gutted, 1st brand new bike i’d ever bought… Still hurts to this day… there are many more bumps, scrapes and scratches since mind, but this is the one I always see 😐

I’d also be inclined to check that it items being rubbed away rather than being chipped.

If it’s just a chip it will be fine, if it’s being rubbed away….

I have a carbon Highball. It has way worse rub than that on the inside of the chainstay from tyre rub (thanks to wheel flex and a tyre that was max width). I slapped some tape on top (to monitor) and have ridden several thousand km without any problems.

Good news is a bit of 1200 grit wet n dry used gently followed by a bit of T-cut should fix the paint damage, then a touch up pen could cover the carbon damage.
Bad news is chainstay failure usually happens in that area.
But I don’t think it’s that bad, not bad enough to warrant a full on repair job, just a tiny bit of filler if paint wont fill it, I’ve seen a lot worse in several places on one frame, but the first scratch is always painful.

Looks more like a gouge

Carbon doesn’t ‘gouge’ like that, the uniform nature of the shape suggests a rub, though the picture isn’t great, you can also see the areas where the lacquer is worn off further out.

Top tip, get a rockguardz if your bothered about rock strikes, one on my Bronson has some right nasty strike marks on it!.

Rub damage on carbon isn’t normally too much of an issue (unless it’s pretty severe) as the integrity of the carbon is still intact, it’s impact shocks that do more damage (ie big rock strikes, square edge hits etc) as the shock of the impact can delaminate the carbon layers significantly weakening it below the surface

Probably two mm

Really? 2mm deep? I’d be surprised if the wall thickness of the material is much more than 2mm thick….is there any way you can measure it more accurately? 2mm is alot in bike tube wall thickness (some metal bike frame tubes are less than 1mm on some parts of the bike). From the photo it doesn’t look that deep to me but hard to tell from a photo. I suspect it is mainly through the paint and a rub on the carbon and you’d be OK.

Also put some Invisiwrap on it. It’s not bullet proof but pretty good for abrasion type stuff and adds a bit more thickness for things to wear though before getting to the frame underneath.

Looks fine. Carbon tubes are far far thicker than their metal equivalents. I wouldn’t be surprised if that part of the frame is almost solid.

And yes, that’s never 2mm deep. You need to find out what’s caused that rub, shoe, whatever, and address that.

Another here who thinks that’s a rub mark. I’m guessing that’s the non driveside chainstay? Got a pwer meter or something fitted to that crank?

I spent the entire 6 months of ownership of a carbon santacruz freaking out about damage from rocks so know the feeling.
Way way way happier now I’m back on an alloy bike.

Looks like a rub than a scratch. paint over it and then invisframe or gorilla tape over it and get riding that beastie.

Carbon Fibre is a composite material, i.e. carbon fibres embedded in a resin, the strength comes from the fibre wrap, so unless you damage the fibres, it’s not a problem (unless of course it’s another type of damage such as heat, UV, etc over time).

On bikes you get thick paint, then a lacquer, then the composite material, it’s given that level of thickness to add a bit of protection to reduce damage from impact damage, so from what i see you’ll be fine, it is a little blurry but can’t see more than paint and lacquer being off, just put a bit of primer and paint in there and you’ll be fine.

If you want extra confidence in it, you could remove the rear triangle and then try the old coin tapping test, not hugely accurate but can highlight damage.