No! No! No! to a scotch pad, we use them to matt a surface prior to painting not for removing scratches, difficult to see from the picture how deep they are but some gentle compound may help. If you have a local friendly garage ask them who does their alloy wheels, as that is who I would use up here as we/they have ways of reprodung that grain and effect prior to laquering.
Getting scratch off Ti frame
- Thread starter vickster
- Start date
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Soltydog
Legendary Member
- Location
- near Hornsea
I used a scotchbrite pad (from ebay) on my VN seatpost to remove the logo 
IIRC they come in different grades. I did rub some of the frame on my Van Nic at one point, but as Ian has said a few scratches add to the character of the bike & nowadays I just leave them, but I don't have any 'trauma' scratches on my bike 
If it's an insurance claim, maybe professional advice is best & avoid damage with the logos
Hope you are 100% soon too
IIRC they come in different grades. I did rub some of the frame on my Van Nic at one point, but as Ian has said a few scratches add to the character of the bike & nowadays I just leave them, but I don't have any 'trauma' scratches on my bike If it's an insurance claim, maybe professional advice is best & avoid damage with the logos Hope you are 100% soon too
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vickster
Legendary Member
An insurance claim? Nope, no other parties involvedI used a scotchbrite pad (from ebay) on my VN seatpost to remove the logo
Hope you are 100% soon too
Soltydog
Legendary Member
- Location
- near Hornsea
oops, I never saw a post from you regarding an 'incident' so thought it may have been a collision
It was Enigma who recommended the scotch pads to me, so reckon they are safe enough to use. May take a while with gentle rubbing, but I reckon it will look better than at present I've only used half the pad I bought, if moneys tight I can send you the other half of the pad 
davidphilips
Veteran
- Location
- Onabike
Watching this thread with interest, sorry i can not offer any good advice vickster, own a few titanium bikes and hence the interest.
Really wish you a full and speedy recovery vickster and am delighted its not put you of cycling so full marks to you there.
Some thing i have thought about (your bike is far to new to consider this) would be to have a titanium bike anodized just dont know any firm local?
But think looking on internet an anodized titanium bike looks really great?
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-ggqb5B3i0
Really wish you a full and speedy recovery vickster and am delighted its not put you of cycling so full marks to you there.
Some thing i have thought about (your bike is far to new to consider this) would be to have a titanium bike anodized just dont know any firm local?
But think looking on internet an anodized titanium bike looks really great?
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-ggqb5B3i0
I few points, for what they're worth:
- Polishing out a scratch requires abrasives as you're effectively removing the damaged material and cutting the surface back to undamaged material beneath.
- The existing surface appears to be a brushed finish running across the length of the tubes.
- If the finish is raw (unlacquered) you may get away with just polishing it, if it's had some form of coating applied during production (lacquer / clear coat) you're going to want to re-apply this afterwards, which adds complexity / hassle.
- Any polishing you do is going to want to run only in the same direction as the brushed "grain" - i.e. across the tubes to maintain the existing finish.
- You're going to want to match the abrasive coarseness to that of the existing finish; with paper abrasives such as wet and dry this is defined by the "grit" number - the lower the number the more coarse the abrasive.
- You're going to want to mask off the logos (which look media blasted..?) before treatment or you'll polish these out too and it'll look bloody terrible.
Ultimately, potentially do-able but you want to ensure you're approaching it properly to avoid making it worse. In your position I'd probably look to source some fairly gentle abrasives (such as scotch pad type stuff as alredy mentioned) in a number of coarsenesses, carefully mask off any adjacent bits of logo and give one spot a gentle polish across the tube with maybe a 400 grit equivalent pad to see how that turns out; noting how the scratch is reacting and how the resultant finish compares to what's already there. You may wish to use a flat backer / block on the pad (rather than your finger) to reduce the chance of getting a dip in the finish because you're concentrating on one specific area.
The last thing to remember is that (personally speaking) it's often easier to accept damage than to accept the results of imperfect attempts to rectify if
- Polishing out a scratch requires abrasives as you're effectively removing the damaged material and cutting the surface back to undamaged material beneath.
- The existing surface appears to be a brushed finish running across the length of the tubes.
- If the finish is raw (unlacquered) you may get away with just polishing it, if it's had some form of coating applied during production (lacquer / clear coat) you're going to want to re-apply this afterwards, which adds complexity / hassle.
- Any polishing you do is going to want to run only in the same direction as the brushed "grain" - i.e. across the tubes to maintain the existing finish.
- You're going to want to match the abrasive coarseness to that of the existing finish; with paper abrasives such as wet and dry this is defined by the "grit" number - the lower the number the more coarse the abrasive.
- You're going to want to mask off the logos (which look media blasted..?) before treatment or you'll polish these out too and it'll look bloody terrible.
Ultimately, potentially do-able but you want to ensure you're approaching it properly to avoid making it worse. In your position I'd probably look to source some fairly gentle abrasives (such as scotch pad type stuff as alredy mentioned) in a number of coarsenesses, carefully mask off any adjacent bits of logo and give one spot a gentle polish across the tube with maybe a 400 grit equivalent pad to see how that turns out; noting how the scratch is reacting and how the resultant finish compares to what's already there. You may wish to use a flat backer / block on the pad (rather than your finger) to reduce the chance of getting a dip in the finish because you're concentrating on one specific area.
The last thing to remember is that (personally speaking) it's often easier to accept damage than to accept the results of imperfect attempts to rectify if
fossyant
Ride It Like You Stole It!
- Location
- South Manchester
What about going back to the frame manufacturer ?
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vickster
Legendary Member
Sod all of thatI few points, for what they're worth:
- Polishing out a scratch requires abrasives as you're effectively removing the damaged material and cutting the surface back to undamaged material beneath.
- The existing surface appears to be a brushed finish running across the length of the tubes.
- If the finish is raw (unlacquered) you may get away with just polishing it, if it's had some form of coating applied during production (lacquer / clear coat) you're going to want to re-apply this afterwards, which adds complexity / hassle.
- Any polishing you do is going to want to run only in the same direction as the brushed "grain" - i.e. across the tubes to maintain the existing finish.
- You're going to want to match the abrasive coarseness to that of the existing finish; with paper abrasives such as wet and dry this is defined by the "grit" number - the lower the number the more coarse the abrasive.
- You're going to want to mask off the logos (which look media blasted..?) before treatment or you'll polish these out too and it'll look bloody terrible.
Ultimately, potentially do-able but you want to ensure you're approaching it properly to avoid making it worse. In your position I'd probably look to source some fairly gentle abrasives (such as scotch pad type stuff as alredy mentioned) in a number of coarsenesses, carefully mask off any adjacent bits of logo and give one spot a gentle polish across the tube with maybe a 400 grit equivalent pad to see how that turns out; noting how the scratch is reacting and how the resultant finish compares to what's already there. You may wish to use a flat backer / block on the pad (rather than your finger) to reduce the chance of getting a dip in the finish because you're concentrating on one specific area.
The last thing to remember is that (personally speaking) it's often easier to accept damage than to accept the results of imperfect attempts to rectify if
LIfe's far too short!
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vickster
Legendary Member
That's Spa - they are many hundreds of miles away, not going to happen!
