Carbolift - Carbon-specific paint stripper

[Dead Man]

Howdyhowdy

I haven't seen much out there on this stuff, so I figured I'd share my experience thus far

I hate loud decals. I am a pretty militant de-brander, when it comes to bike parts. Nothing on the frame but a classy head badge, nothing on the fork, nothing on the wheels, hopefully nothing really anywhere else either, but there's not usually much you can do about some decalage peaking through your bar tape, and I just don't feel like it would be a good idea to try to strip group components.

Easton decals in particular are really hard to get off, and are really loud - at least their older stuff. Double lameness. And they're typically pretty integral with the finish... You can't just acetone them off and be done.

So I rattle-canned a set of EC90s a while back... just masked off the brake track and spokes, prepped it really good with acetone, and satin-black'd 'em. Came out slick and I rode them stealth style for many miles without any problems, until I finally went to 11-speed, and decided to part with my 10-speed wheelsets.

I found a buyer almost immediately via the local race association, but they were for his kid's tryathletics, and apparently there's a rule against un-branded wheels? He wanted me to strip the paint off. No prob! Except instead of using acetone, which I know won't hurt the Easton paint, I decided to use some Citristrip I had sitting around from another project. Why??

Welp... I found something that would remove Easton decals. :rolleyes:

Unfortunately, it didn't do it cleanly. The painted decals had to be scrubbed the rest of the way off, and only SOME mottled sections of base coat scrubbed off with it. If it'd just removed the painted decals and left the ghosting behind in otherwise clean base coat, it actually would have looked pretty pimp.. alas.

Googling once again for solutions, I happened across Carbolift again and their claims to be the only safe hardcore carbon stripper. I sent them an email asking if they thought their product would strip even the tough-as-nails Easton base clear coat off and take it all the way down to bare carbon, and they emailed back quickly and said "Yes!" So I ordered a small bottle for about $41 or $42 shipped from Canada.

It arrived pretty quick... 3 days? Good on 'em for that.

I started with the front wheel - the wheel I'd previously screwed up with the Citristrip (I hadn't done anything to the rear yet)

http://i844.photobucket.com/albums/ab6/bkb0000/IMG_1403_zpsidwczmrb.jpg

Directions (online only, nothing included with the bottle) said to paint it on, wrap it up in plastic, and heat would speed the action. Said not to leave it on carbon for longer than 24 hours. Don't let the product dry on the part. The demo video shows them wrapping a carbon frame in plastic wrap all nice and clean, but these are wheels and I couldn't really see getting any kind of clean wrap going on them with all the spokes in the way, and I definitely wasn't unlacing for this stupid task. So I figured putting the wheel in a big plastic bag ought to work well enough...

http://i844.photobucket.com/albums/ab6/bkb0000/IMG_1406_zpst4jukmgi.jpg

Long story short, I eventually figured out that a big plastic bad is NOT "good enough." You really need to have the plastic wrapped pretty air-tight directly over the product to prevent it from drying out. So my first couplefew coats were pretty unproductive, and I only bought a small bottle of this stuff... and limited patience.

First time I pulled it out of the bag, after probably 4 hours soaking:

http://i844.photobucket.com/albums/ab6/bkb0000/IMG_1408_zpsarzlmlwz.jpg

It had semi dried on the piece, and it hadn't really DONE anything... just a bit of wrinkling of the base coat around the edges where it had already come up. If I took scraping tools to it, I could get it to scrape up unevenly and inconsistently, in a waxy pieces.. but it was obviously going to take more soaking, and more work than I was hoping.

The rest of the front wheel part was a lot of trial and error, and I ended up putting it back in the bag probably 4-5 times before I got all the chunky base coat off... but the stubborn areas didn't come off that clean, leaving an ashy residue in the texture of the carbon scrim.

http://i844.photobucket.com/albums/ab6/bkb0000/IMG_1423_zpscedypwan.jpg

Wetting with the product and scrubbing vigorously with a no-scratch ScotchBrite pad (buy a pack of them) got it pretty clean...

But due to the corrosive nature of the Carbolift, I did run out of patience for getting the carbon perfectly clean.

And speaking of the corrosive nature - this stuff is pretty nasty. You MUST use in a well-ventilated area, and I'd say you probably even want to use a VOC respirator. It definitely irritated my throat/lungs/sinuses, breathing it in. The MSDS looked really tame, and it doesn't have a VOC smell to it at all, so I didn't even realize how caustic is was until I'd suffered injury.. Also, it eats through nitril gloves, and does burn your skin...

http://i844.photobucket.com/albums/ab6/bkb0000/IMG_1417_zpsmv9nljxp.jpg

Doubling up on gloves solved that problem, and once I started cross-ventilating my shop, I didn't have any more airway irritation. Just be warned, on those.

So the final scrub did get it pretty clean, but not finished-product clean. Maybe I could have soaked longer, one more time, and scrubbed it completely clean? But as I said, I was tired of working with the chemical and just wanted to get to the next step (you know, being done), so I decided to clear coat it instead. I theorized that the ashy spots left would wet into the clear coat and be mostly invisible... so I went for it.

Masked and clear-coated, drying.. crappy post-dusk pic:

http://i844.photobucket.com/albums/ab6/bkb0000/IMG_1455_zpsvmidla3u.jpg

My theory on the ashiness was correct - the new clear coat wetted it and soaked right in. Couldn't really see any mottling at all... just looks like clean, wet carbon scrim. Aside from the gloss (regrettable) finish, the front wheel actually came out great.

[Dead Man]

For the second wheel, I played around with wrapping it in different ways, and made improvements. The first coat of Carbolift got sloppily wrapped in plastic AND tossed into the bag. I also let it soak longer... probably 6-8 hours this time. It STILL dried up a lot more than I think it should have (to work effectively), but I scrubbed the decals off with that first coat, and even got about half the base coat off the carbon.

After removing black paint with acetone, before Carbolifting:
http://i844.photobucket.com/albums/ab6/bkb0000/IMG_1454_zpshjdeuikx.jpg

Applying the second coat and figuring out a better, cleaner, tighter way of wrapping the rim:
http://i844.photobucket.com/albums/ab6/bkb0000/IMG_1456_zpskrbxtgw9.jpg
http://i844.photobucket.com/albums/ab6/bkb0000/IMG_1458_zpsi82ivqsi.jpg

And aside from wetting/scrubbing with the pad, those were the only two wrapped soaks I did on the rear wheel, so I think the trick is definitely to make sure it's wrapped up really tight, so it can't dry out. The plastic bag was an OK idea, but I failed to realize how much this stuff off-gasses - it's that off-gassing that causes it to dry out, even inside an air-impermeable bag. I should have known better!

With the second wheel, things progressed so much faster, and I was so much less patient for it than I was even with the first, I did not do nearly as good a final scrub, and left a lot more of the white residue on the rear. It did not "wet" into the clear coat nearly as well, but I can't say I'm super unhappy with how it looks... in fact, it really just looks like more character in the carbon matrix (note: a lot of the "character" you see in this pic IS actually just the carbon- the two different wavinesses blend in pretty well):

http://i844.photobucket.com/albums/ab6/bkb0000/IMG_1461_zps0tehbtjv.jpghttp://i844.photobucket.com/albums/ab6/bkb0000/IMG_1462_zpsiu8rrf66.jpg
http://i844.photobucket.com/albums/ab6/bkb0000/IMG_1463_zpsbwaborhe.jpg


Because I'm a weight-nerd, I did save all the scraped off base coat, dried it, and weighed it.... Took about 15g off each wheel!

http://i844.photobucket.com/albums/ab6/bkb0000/IMG_1422_zpsn3oatphu.jpg

I just realized I haven't yet taken a pic of both wheels together in decent light, so I'll edit this with that later.

In conclusion; I think it's a useable product. It wasn't as miraculous as I was hoping, but I'm also allowing for the fact that these wheels are probably a lot harder to do than say a fork or some other small part that would be signficantly easier to wrap up really well, as well as scrub down. The wheels with spokes were big and cumbersome and impossible to get sealed up really well... but when I did figure out a better method for th rear wheel, the product did a LOT more of the work for me.

Would I do another wheelset with it? Well, probably not just for personal aesthetics. Way too much work. I don't really buy loud-ass decaled Easton parts anymore (there's just way better carbon out there anyway), so that's the first step to success. BUT... as in a situation like this where the appearance was simply unacceptable, I guess I'd do it again to "save" a wheelset.

I have a couple forks I want to do next.. I'm happy to document one or both, if anyone is really interested. I think it will go a lot smoother.

[ergott]

Nice share!

[aosty]

I found a buyer almost immediately via the local race association, but they were for his kid's tryathletics, and apparently there's a rule against un-branded wheels? He wanted me to strip the paint off. No prob!


I would've just found another buyer. ;)
What's the reasoning behind such a rule?

Thanks for the info.... good to know... I have some rattle-can-stealth'd stuff also.

http://images.tapatalk-cdn.com/15/06/18/1401a6188f77212648068f01ea02d7e8.jpg

[Dead Man]

Looks good! Decals over the ppaint?

I do not know... there's no such road racing rule, but maybe tryathletics is governed by a different association? Dunno. I'll scan my OBRA rulebook if I think about it later.

I actually offered to remove the paint - no big deal. Wipes right off, with acetone.. could have had both wheels ready for sale in 30-45 minutes, depending on how much beer-sipping I did during the process.

But that Citristrip.... dammit. Oh well. I'll probably just roll these on a different bike, now... they're pretty fly.

[aosty]

Looks good! Decals over the ppaint?


The top had a red band - I covered that and the exterior side decal and left the decals on the inner side. It's stealth directly from the side but the inner decal peeks out when viewed at an angle.

[ultraman6970]

The logos were under clear coat or over clear coat?? asking because if they were under clear coat, you might need to put a coat (or 2) of polyurethane clear coat over those rims or they will start getting yellow due to lack of UV protection.

Nice job tho :)

ps: looks like you took everything off the rim, consider to clear coat them.

[Peter P.]

Thanks for taking the time to submit the write-up. Interesting stuff.

[lil_champ]

I stripped my Giant TCR frame a few years ago with Citristrip. It was a huge mess, but it worked. The Citristrip got me 95% of the way there, but it was that last 5% of scraping and careful wet sanding that took forever. Probably not worth the work, but it was just something I wanted to try and I like the end result.

You have to be very careful with carbon, but it's not impossible. I used to be a Finisher in a professional paint shop, and I've spent some time with a few carbon builders and seen how they handle their frames.

UV isn't actually that big of an issue. You would have to leave your bare carbon parts out in the sun all day for years before they would start to yellow. If you're concerned about it, there is a spray called 303 Protectant that works.

[Dead Man]

I did a couple forks with the Citristrip and it does great on paint, but does very little to the base coat directly over the carbon scrim. Softens it up just a little, but yea - I was scraping and sanding a lot to get down to bare carbon, and I really did not want to remove ANY of the scrim on these wheels. With the Carbolift, I did have to scrape, but with softer plastic scrapers (and did very carefully hit a couple problem spots with a polycarbonate ski wax scraper) and a scrub brush. No sanding at all... so in that, this Carbolift is fairly revolutionary, for me any what I've been doing. It's the only product I've used that'll get you there sand-free.

[lil_champ]

Carbolift definitely sounds like a much better product. I went with Citristrip because it was a lot cheaper.

[Dead Man]

Carbolift definitely sounds like a much better product. I went with Citristrip because it was a lot cheaper.

True that.. Carbolift isn't cheap. Did you know about Carbolift at the time? I've only been aware of its existence for probably 6 months, but I have no idea how long it's been out. Can't believe how little there is on it out there

[mvrider]

... just a cool technology I learned about through my work:

http://www.lasertronics.com/

By fine tuning the laser wavelength and active reflection monitoring, they can strip specific layers of composites, from a stealth fighter, for example.

[aosty]

http://cdn.meme.am/instances/48570591.jpg

[Dead Man]

Did a fork...

http://i844.photobucket.com/albums/ab6/bkb0000/IMG_14701_zpsz0xogr5f.jpg

http://i844.photobucket.com/albums/ab6/bkb0000/IMG_14821_zps3ayckdin.jpg

I think a lot of the problem with "drying out" is that, at least for the first application on a given part, a lot of the product is absorbed into the coating being dissolved. I wrapped the fork up really well late last night, and returned about 8 hours later this morning and it was, again, basically dry underneath. Definitely didn't all just vapor off.

In the future I won't let the first application sit under wrap for longer than about 4 hours - once it soaks in (or dries out, whichever, same effect), it's not doing anything, possibly even re-solidifying. So before it does, either re-wet or get to scraping.

The second application was signficantly more productive, and I only let it sit for about 4 hours. It was still wet when I unwrapped it. I was able to scrape or scrub about 97% off after that. Once again, as with the wheels, the tougher spots did not scrape off clean and left an ashy-looking residue. Rather than fight with it, or leave it, I just went ahead and re-wetted, wrapped, and let sit for another couple hours. Almost all of it scrubbed off with no-scratch pads after that... but the carbon itself had a funky texture to it, so I did end up doing a very fine sanding.. given that I was breaking out the sandpaper anyway, I didn't bother scrubbing every last bit of ash off.

Time wise, I'm not sure this was any improvement over Citristrip. However, the sanding is either minimal or not necessary at all, and that saved on both EFFORT and the workpiece itself... so those are pretty big. And "billable hours" are reduced, even if total start-to-finish time isn't.... I really only put about 2 hours into fiddling with this fork over the total 18 hours from start to finish.

So I'm saying it's a good product. Just be prepared for some learning curvage and don't expect miracles. It doesn't make this messy, frustrating, laborious task fun or anything... just a bit less frustrating and laborious.

[Birddog]

I drug this up because I wanted to know if the OP recommends Citrus Strip or Carbolift to strip paint from fork. That fork pictured looks pretty good, how did you do that?

[JAllen]

Where is The B? Haven't seen him on here in a while...