Hi all, i recently snapped the mount bolt on my very heavily tuned SRAM red (104gm), but i think this was because the jockey wheel jammed. anyway the derailleur snapped off and hopped into the wheel for a joy ride before hitting the chain stay and cracking my little baby rather badly. So while my wee girl is off at the hospital getting fixed i have become curious at stripping the frame down to the carbon and then custom painting it. My question is, for stripping the frame (Scott Addict R1 viewtopic.php?f=10&t=100739 ) which has layers of clear-coat over the naked UD carbon, what should i do? I have the fork to practice on here so i can get it all working before i do the frame. But dont recall seeing carbo lift works on clearcoat only, does anyone know the knife / blade stripping technique? Also i dont have the time to be waiting for then using carbo lift to arrive.

So what i ask is does the blade technique work well, and if yes, how or what do you do? Or what other suggestions do people have?

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I'm also interested in what the current opinions are on the best way to do things. That and the carbolift website shop doesn't seem to be working....

I hear that carbolift hasnt been offering product for a while now, i went with the blade technique and it seems to be working fine. ill put some pictures up later on, it took me two hours for the fork alone but it has come up nice.

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I've always wondered how you can be sure of only taking off paint when your scraping with a razor blade?

Chances are that the paint is way softer than the carbon fiber, so its unlikely that you'll scrape the carbon at all.

I'm almost positive that if you gently use a heat gun it will make the razor blade stripping easier, if in doubt I would use a laser thermometer just to be safe you're not overheating and cooking the frame.

I repainted a Cervelo RS, and it was a b!tch to remove as much as the paint as possible without getting too crazy and hitting the carbon layer, but I did it by using a DA sander. I do automotive paint and body for a living and it was 'easy' for me to do. I should have tried the razor blade method but I totally forgot about that one, many people use that to strip older corvette shells.

it took me two hours to do the fork, and it has turned out really well so far! the finish is smooth and your right, the carbon is FAR harder than the paint. no issues so far...

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I wouldn't use heat on it unless you are ABSOLUTELY SURE it will be ok vis a vis the safe temp for the composite, and the temp you will need for the paint.
Epoxy is heat sensitive.

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r o y g b i v

Yes i agree.... ill continue to use the knife blade and then see how it goes, ill hopefully post some pics today or tomorow of the fork while i wait for the frame to come back from the carbon guys...

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I've just got an evo delivered and am tossing up doing the same thing but am terrified about starting and ruining the frame. I will keep an eye for your progress with interest.

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Evo 5.63kg SL3 7.045kg viewtopic.php?f=10&t=110579" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

ill; be honest, i nearly crapped myself when i started. Ill try remember to take some photos of it but im terrible with the memory stuff... so far so good...

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I just stripped my old trek 5900 superlight . I did buy some carbo lift but thought I would just get a craft knife
and just kind of cut the paint off . It all started coming off quite well so I finished the whole bike just using the knife and carfully cutting the paint away , just dig in lightly and kind of cut/scrape along but don't dig into the carbon. It took me around 3 hours of intense work including tea breaks to strip my frame . Frame looks great its very grey I thought it would have been more black like my Guru . I will post some pics at some point.
Ps...... Still not touched the carbo lift so cannot say how well it works.

surprised you actually got any from them... they havent been to popular with their customers lately. Yeha im going to use the knife technique when i get me frame back tonight hopefully. Ill post progress later on...

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