What do you guys typically use to repair small rock dings in the powdercoat? My forks are getting nicked up with little pinhole dings from small road debris. Pinhead sized, but the sliver behind the coating is showing, and I don't want it to get worse. Thanks in advance.

 

I use some epoxy paint and a tiny brush to fill in the spot.

 

Black Sharpie and some 3M clear vinyl.

 

I like the idea of black epoxy, and then covering with clear cast vinyl for added protection. Thanks guys !!!

 

I just wait until it gets too ugly and get them recoated. Gives me an excuse to service the forks.

 

Probably not worth it unless you have lots of chips or dings, but you can buy the actual powder coat in half pounds or pounds from a few places (powderbuythepound.com, allpowderpaints.com, powder365.com, etc.). It's cheap. If you mix a little powder with some MEK you can make a paste to fill in the damaged areas. Let it dry, then lightly sand and buff and it'll look good as new.

 

http://powder365.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11728

 

I've never had a problem doing this on "pinhole" size imperfections which is what the OP described. I could see this being a problem on larger coverage areas though. I suppose you could try doing a partial cure with a heat gun taking care to slowly heat the affected area (applying heat a little at a time) and not trying to do a full cure (which would be 360-400f PMT for the desired time depending on the powder). You would almost certainly overheat and damage the surrounding powder coat using the heat gun method. At any rate, the other methods mentioned would most likely work if you're skeptical.

 

I think I'll get some black 2 part epoxy and a small brush. then cover with clear protective film on the forks. It should work. I have the 3M clear protectors on my wife's car, and I'll say I'm impressed. It takes a rock ding and hasn't chipped the paint under it yet. Thanks for the advice guys.

 

Careful with that MEK ... Very volatile stuff !