The fork on my road bike has carbon legs. However it’s one of these where the rest is alu, and the paint has started flaking from the alu sections, leaving large patches of bare metal exposed.

So can I strip it and repaint, or at the very least re-laquer? Not really fussed what it looks like.

I wouldn’t strip it as the resin used to bond the fibres together will be attacked by any chemical used to strip paint.

A re-laquer shouldn’t be too much of a problem – the solvents in the lacquer will not be as harmful to the carbon (if at all).

Egg-sucking time…check that the corrosion that you’re seeing is not at the joint/overlap between the CF and the alu because it could lead to a failure (google galvanic corrosion)

The difficulty with painting alu is that it begins to oxidise almost as soon as you prep it for paint, ideally you’d use an etch-primer but I don’t know what’s safe with CF. I’d ask one of the CF repair specialists

The workshop behind us repaints carbon race cars. I have had them paint a bike for me with wonderful results. This is what they guys told me.
” Carbon requires a special primer but as it has already been painted once all you need to do is rub it down to key it up for a fresh coat.”
“Don’t strip it. That will F*!k it.”
P.S. They use water based paints these days.

being an avid fan of people like @fatcreations, @spraymonkeytanya and @doktortoby etc on instagram i would suggest that carbon can indeed be repainted, many times with marvelous results..

Egg-sucking time…check that the corrosion that you’re seeing is not at the joint/overlap between the CF and the alu because it could lead to a failure (google galvanic corrosion)

Hmm. I haven’t inspected it properly. But I think what might have cause it is water ingress/corrosion from the head tube area. I mean there must be something causing the paint to flake (came off with pressure washer). Although the brake mount could have contributed as it’s around that area.

Wouldn’t care, but the carbon sections are perfect. Look brand new.