so I have an el Guapo in super raw, with a set of RS lyrics, with black headers and white lowers.

the forks work well and have been serviced and have a new spring. But being second hand from here they look a little tatty, well quite tatty actually. Need to have both the fork lowers and headers done.

so I’d like to freshen them up to match the frame and have googled here and on mbr etc and opinion views are divided on how to do this. Choices as I see it are:

powder coating

spraying

anodizing

i understand that I’ll have to completely disassemble the forks, but anyone here at STW had it done ? Any advice, recommendations?

thanks

I’d get them sprayed as it is less work in terms of rebuild than either of the two other options. You’d simply need to mask the bits you didn’t want coated I don’t know how you would protect the stanchions during powder coating or anodising. Because of the heat/dipping with the other two options you’d not be able to do this.

A suitable sprayed coating would be as tough as powder coating. I’d probably look at a car body shop place to do something. To get them done in black/white or silver should be pretty cheap as they are standard car colours.

I had my 36 lowers resprayed recently.

I fully stripped them baring the internal bushes and then sent them off to be serviced and rebuilt by my suspension guy.

Good opportunity to service the forks, disassembly is easy.

Thanks – sounds like having them sprayed is the right option

Quick resurrection of this thread.

took the bike to the local body spray outfit, their suggestion was if I wanted to match the frame, was to remove the paint and machine the fork headers and lowers, appply the decals and lacquer the forks.

nothing else would be a good match, according to their sprayer chap. He did also say that he could spray the, silver, using a matting agent in the paint, to dull down the finish to try to match the frame.

my question to the experts is there any downside to taking the forks back to bare metal, like the super raw Titus el Guapo frame ?

cant find anything on doing this using google, which suggests it’s not a common approach.

anyone sprayed their forks silver etc that can offer any advice ?

thanks

One thing to consider is whatever you spend you can undo in a single accident*.

Obviously it would be less than perfect but you could use auto touch-up paint and then replace the decals..

*Not necessarily you on the bike….. my mate drove 200 miles with the bike on the back… his kids cable was touching his fork and after 200 miles he had a big scar on the fork… I’m pretty sure that most of the scratches on my year old Pike Lowers are OPPP’s (Other peoples pedal pins)

Just a thought …. but it’s considerably less cost/hassle and in a few months time might not look all that different?

Am I missing something?

You have a raw aluminium frame and want black forks? What about them not matching are you concerned about? the forks might not be the exact amount of sheen (gloss-satin-matte) but I wouldn’t worry about that. Lots of people have shiny glossy frames and matte forks and you’ll not rally notice.

The fork lowers will be magnesium, the crown will be aluminium (as is the frame) so you won’t get a match by just stripping and lacquering them anyway.

If they were really bad and I could be bothered, I’d go with some really contrasting colour (and not the Fox Orange or DVO green or anything else copied, be creative).

Am I missing something?

You have a raw aluminium frame and want black forks? What about them not matching are you concerned about? the forks might not be the exact amount of sheen (gloss-satin-matte) but I wouldn’t worry about that. Lots of people have shiny glossy frames and matte forks and you’ll not rally notice.

yes, the frame is raw and I want to the forks to match, not for them to be black, the frame is raw aluminium.

will try and get a photo up later today.

the forks currently have black header, white lowers and are looking very secondhand.