# What's the best way to touch up a matte black frame?



## mmik (Oct 17, 2009)

I want to touch up some scratches, but I want to do it the best way I can to prevent it from being an obvious touch-up. ya know?


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## AZ (Apr 14, 2009)

Matte black paint, you kinda fog it on trying to blend it on with a fade into the original paint.


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## kapusta (Jan 17, 2004)

mmik said:


> I want to touch up some scratches, but I want to do it the best way I can to prevent it from being an obvious touch-up. ya know?


I use dirt and mud to hide scratches.


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## jeffw-13 (Apr 30, 2008)

Try a Sharpie


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## husonfirst (Feb 2, 2009)

Try using paint made for plastic models such as Testors.


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## highdelll (Oct 3, 2008)

It's time for a new frame


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## dirt farmer (Mar 28, 2005)

A sharpie has always worked fine on my matte black. Can barely see it, unless very close up.


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## mmik (Oct 17, 2009)

That might not work, they're chips, not scratches.


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## MonsterD (Mar 8, 2011)

highdelll said:


> It's time for a new frame


Confirmed for not riding hard enough/aggressively.  Then again, I haven't seen any other post saying that he does. Lets just say if you don't have nicks and scratches on your frame you are riding on grass or bike paths. :thumbsup:


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## mmik (Oct 17, 2009)

he was making fun of me, monster D

>_<


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## claydough001 (Apr 30, 2010)

Take a syringe and and a pair of wire cutters. Cut the pointed tip off of the syringe. Sand the fresh cut tip down so that it is nice and smooth with a nice hole so that the paint can flow. Large guage work best. Take the needle off and suck the paint up into the syringe. Put the needle back on and use the syringe like a pen. I touched up cars and trucks for 10 years and thats the best way to do it.


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## Gon3R (May 5, 2011)

If you sand the matte it turns shiny. FYI.


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## mmik (Oct 17, 2009)

great advice about the syringe, thanks!

Also, I love matte finish, so I'd like to keep it as such.

Is there a sort of reverse-polish I can do to it if the freshly painted sections are shiny?


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## claydough001 (Apr 30, 2010)

not really. You can get a bit of acetone and wipe it off and re-apply. Usually the automotive paint i used back in the day dried in sort of a matt finish which was a problem because it clashed with the gloss finish so when it dried i would hit it with a syringe of clear. If i were you i would go to wal-mart and buy a can of flat black spray paint. It will say on the little white sticker on the can "Flat Black" Shake it up very good and spray it into the top cap of the spray can until you get enough so that you can draw it into the syringe. A little bit will go a long way because you want to make sure you dont apply too much. It will run. If you have to hit the rock chips 2 or 3 times thats fine but use thin layers and re-apply as needed.


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## Genshammer (Jun 30, 2006)

*Frosted Glass*

When we repair carbon frames that have a matte finish, we use a little trick to perfect the blend area. There's this spraypaint finish you can buy at Home Depot called 'frosted glass'. Stuff is seriously magical. Once we're done color matching and spraying our matte coat, if it still isn't perfectly blended, we use the frosted glass, and bingo. Give it a try.

Here's an Argon 18 we repaired with a matte finish on the nude carbon. We used some of the frosted glass to blend it. Came out perfect.


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## wo86 (Apr 17, 2020)

so, @mmik, did it work?

I'm also interested to know if it's possible to (permanently) cover some small scratches on black matte paint (on an alu frame). Apparently the person who sold me my bike was able to cover them up a little bit, but that cover came off after washing the bike...


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## Scott O (Aug 5, 2004)

Why was AZ, the second poster, banned?


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

Scott O said:


> Why was AZ, the second poster, banned?


I think he was one of the ones that was cleared out years ago when MTBR decided to ban a ton of users (back in the days when they could afford to do so supposedly). I think he may have been reincarnated, though.

Anyone know what happened to the Angry Singlespeeder (Genshammer)? I used to read his column here on the site, I can probably thank/blame him for me being here.


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## milehi (Nov 2, 1997)

chazpat said:


> I think he was one of the ones that was cleared out years ago when MTBR decided to ban a ton of users (back in the days when they could afford to do so supposedly). I think he may have been reincarnated, though.
> 
> Anyone know what happened to the Angry Singlespeeder (Genshammer)? I used to read his column here on the site, I can probably thank/blame him for me being here.


The first time I met Kurt (ASS), he was taking a bath in a tiny creek after a race.. Like ankle deep.


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## DIRTJUNKIE (Oct 18, 2000)

Call Matt, I bet he’d know.


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## 786737 (Mar 13, 2015)

Scott O said:


> Why was AZ, the second poster, banned?


Content not rich enough.


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