Hi all,

I have a pair of Easton Ec90 SL clinchers and I want to take the paint off them and get them down to the nude carbon. I have read many posts and it seems a product call Carbolift might be my best option ( and maybe the easiest too) but I have read many negative comments about the actual service of the company. Has anyone had a recent experience with Carbolift, with both the product and customer service, that they could share with me? There seems to be many people who either had to wait a long time to get their product or people who never got it at all. I have emailed them and have yet to receive a reply......perhaps I have answered my own question about their service.

Any other suggestion for some sort of agent that can get the paint off without doing damage?

Tons of threads about carbolift: click me

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Planet-X Nanolight HM - 6.19kg

I find that Cat 4 criteriums remove the paint from carbon wheels pretty reliably.

@astranoc yeh i have read most of them. I just wanted to know if anyone has been able to order some lately. I dont seem to be able to get a response by email and i wanted to know if others have had the same issue.

@ldamelio thanks

You don't need carbolift for this. It might save a little time and muscle, but some 400 grit sandpaper, or even emory cloth will go right through the clear coat to the decals.

The problem I found was that the decals are often almost embedded into the nude carbon layer/melted almost. You end up going down into the carbon layer. If you are lucky, there is a slight clear coat, then sticker, then clear coat. One of my wheels was like this, much easier and I didn't get into the actual carbon. But, the other wheel, not so lucky. The decal was on top of the carbon layer, which is kind of was embedded and melted into the carbon. Had to remove some actual carbon/resin to get it all off. Very little of course, no damage or structural integrity damage to the wheel, I ride them all the time still.

I removed decals off a set of wheels, took me about 3hrs of sanding all four sides and 12 decals total.

Then, I just hit it with some satin clear coat from Lowes, 2 coats. Then some 1500 wet sand finally. Real smooth and they look great.

I would recommend anybody just find wheels without decals, or surface decals which are easily removed on the surface....I don't want to go through that hassle again.

I have a thread over on the Bikeforum under the bike mechanics section on what I did to accomplish it.

By the way, I contacted a few carbon shops that deal with frame repairs etc..some said they would charge me $500...another said DIY. Just sand it down until you hit the carbon and get the decal off..which is what I did. Didn't want to pay as much as the wheels are worth, so I just DIY per the carbon shops recommendation.

http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.ph ... highlight=" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;



Carbolift might work better and be more efficient, I never used it, so I can't comment, but some swear by it.

@ Zigmeister Thanks for your input. I know sanding would be the safest bet. But like everything these days, i would the quickest and less time consuming way, seems to be the way of the world. The link you posted is a great resource...very informative. I suppose at the end of the day i have to ask myself if the easton decals really bother me that much to spend hours sanding them off and risk effecting the wheels, not to mention voiding my warranty.

Exactly. Since my wheels were $700 Taiwanese with some annoying logo and I wasn't worried about the warranty per se, I just ground it out, literally.

Carbolift does sound like an easier solution to go right through the clear and onto the decal surface and remove it. Nothing wrong with that.

Since I didn't have any chemicals available to use except some acetone/rubbing alcohol (which did help on the decals themselves as I got to them), and two carbon bike repair places emailed me back saying they use both methods, it just depends on the bike/paint/situation...I just went ahead and started sanding away. To say my hands/fingers were fatigues/sore 3hrs later is an understatement.

I personally don't want to sand anymore clear coat and decals off ever again. So maybe that should help you decide to go with carbolift righ there.

If you had a small electronic hand sander though, it might not be so bad using that. Mine was all brute force and effort, not fun. But in the end, satisfying.

Good luck...wold be interested to see results if you decide to do it. Not much information and documentation of the process on the web I found.

After 5 hours of work i managed to get my wheels sanded down. I think they are a huge improvement.


P1010147 by sjc166, on Flickr Before

DSC01175 by sjc166, on Flickr After

i like how you roll, sjc.

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