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My beautiful road bike was in an accident which bent the fork. It gets replaced with a black fork which doesn't match the rest of the bike (creme colored).

Now I want to attempt to repaint it. Is there a good way to approach this in order to match the color? I have sent the email to the vendor to ask for the color specifications. I hope there is some kind of industry standard when it comes to the color.

Other than that, is there anything else I should prepare? Do I need to remove the black paint first or can I just color over that?

Mahoni
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  • Are you planning on doing this yourself? Do you have the equipment to do powder coating, or professional airspraying? Or are you going to just rattle-can paint it? – RoboKaren Mar 04 '18 at 22:24
  • @RoboKaren I don't have any equipment nor would plan to get more than a rattle-can yeah – Mahoni Mar 05 '18 at 00:55
  • Shame you didn't get the fork the right colour in the first place. I'd get it professionally sandblasted and professionally powder coated if you want it for the long term. – Criggie Mar 05 '18 at 00:58
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    @Criggie some people warn against sandblasting as it may strip away finer features of a fork. Maybe it is more critical for vintage stuff (lugs and such). – Grigory Rechistov Mar 05 '18 at 04:54
  • @GrigoryRechistov yeah the blaster will be able to advise on a product. I've heard of plastic beads, glass powder, glass kibble, and walnut shells being used as an abrasive agent for blasting, with various levels of effect. You have to protect bearing races and suspension stanchions absolutely, and threads somewhat. If its a suspension fork then complete disassembly might be a good idea. – Criggie Mar 05 '18 at 19:34

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I hope there is some kind of industry standard when it comes to the color.

Surly offers such a service for its bikes:

RAL is a color code number system used by paint manufacturers.

Not so sure about other vendors.

Do I need to remove the black paint first or can I just color over that?

You do not need to remove existing paint. However, it is recommended to use a primer before applying new color layers, and also a clear coat on top of that.

I used spray rattle cans (primer, color and clear coat) to repaint a suspension fork on one of my bikes. Not the best tool for a fine paint job, and even that required a couple of attempts to gain the experience to do it right. However, I am satisfied with the result, given that the fork is on a beater bike.

Good advices on hand repainting of bicycles can be found here. There are other good web resources that I used to learn about the process. Or, you can leave it to professionals — there certainly are services for quality paint jobs.

Grigory Rechistov
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    BTW, I repainted an all-black RockShox fork to be white. The color of primer was rusty red. Neither the original color, nor the primer's color can now be seen through top white layers. – Grigory Rechistov Mar 04 '18 at 21:42