New frame (and rigid fork) arrived today, frame is black and a particularly nice shade of blue, as is the rigid fork. While I’ll give the rigid fork a go, I reckon I’ll be putting my bluto on, which is white (oem with the bike this frame will replace), so will look shit. That blue however…. First world problem I know, and it should be covered in muck and all that, but humour me a moment…

If the painter had the rigid fork in front of them, and wanted to replicate the colour/finish, is it a case of trial and error (sounds expensive/time consuming) or is there some magic process that can do it?

I’ll ask the manufacturer (Salsa) if they have/will give me the paint codes, but not hopeful as the website FAQs doth proclaim….

Do you offer touch-up paint?
Sorry, we don’t. We suggest hitting up your local Scale Model store for some of those little glass jars of Enamel model paint. Those are cheap enough to buy several bottles in case you need to mix some to get just the right shade! You can also try taking your frame to an automotive paint shop supplier. They should be able to make you a pretty good match so you can cover up your scratches.

‘Pretty good match’, hmm, not sure I want to go to all that effort for ‘pretty good’

If not, anyone want to swap a black bluto for a white one?

I’ve been out of the trade for 11 years now but I think there’s a machine that can do it for you now.
Back in my day you’d go through the colour chips and find the nearest one.
Blowing my own trumpet here but I could match any colour.
Problem is, that every time you made some paint up to do a colour chip it used 100 ml . It soon adds up so it would be cheaper just to blend into adjacent panels.
Anyway,matching the paint won’t be an issue as long as the garage has colour chips.

You want to paint the lowers on the Bluto to match the rigid forks?

Vinyl wrap the fork lowers, or wrap them in gold leaf for added bling?

Yeah. And the crown.

to look as close to this as poss….

[url=https://flic.kr/p/HYYtPF]The New one[/url] by tom.howard.562, on Flickr

but the right way up, obvs…
Ah, hadn’t considered vinyl, same questions though…

Colour matching will be either by someone with a wealth of experience or by machine, as above. It should be a good enough match that you will not be able to tell the difference.

I don’t think a professional painter will be willing to go over the original finish, I could be wrong, so it would be a strip back and then respray with the additional time involved with masking up for the different colours. If you want a hard finish in a decent amount of time then a bake will be best, so complete strip down of forks to consider too.

EDIT – Just seen your pic after posting, very nice! Is that two shade of blue or one?

Black forks would work on that.

It’s the same blue, just the way the light hits it that gives that effect.

Yeah I wouldn’t be unhappy with black, just prefer the blue (possibly fading into black, as per the downtube 8) )

The ‘right way up’ comment was cos the pic loaded upside down, seems to be ok now though…

It could be matched with a spectrometer which takes a measurement from light bounced back off the paint. Not many places have them though as they are expensive. The other problem you may have is they need a flat area to work off.
If you went to a bodyshop you might be able to match them up or a local paint supplier might be a better bet as they have colour swatches you can reference off. Most bodyshops are going away from swatches because the paint companies don’t like paying the money to produce them.

A good car refinisher would be able to colour match using a spectrophotometer. You can measure then custom blend the paint. Done by machine, same way the DIY sheds do it. As a first port of call a bit of experience may let some one notice if it is a standard colour from one of the ral pantone or other systems.

Would look very nice with blue blutos, IMO, quite a lot of work to get the custom finish.

Likely cheaper to just buy some new black forks and get some blue decals instead.

It can be done by eye, used to do it when printing. Was very interesting to learn how to build any colour with just a few Base colours and tints. A proper vehicle painter should be able to knock some up no problem