As we welcome spring and enjoy days filled with pleasant sunshine, now is the perfect time to load your tent onto your bike and head out for a camping trip.
That said, perhaps nothing special is required, as simply feeling the breeze while riding your bike to get a delicious meal at your favorite shop is enjoyable enough.
Now, today I’d like to talk about repainting carbon frames and forks.
At Kyutai Paint, regardless of whether the material is steel, aluminum, or carbon, we always begin our work with a stripping process to remove the original paint layer.
The procedure for this stripping process differs significantly between steel or aluminum and carbon.
For steel or aluminum, we submerge the entire frame in a tank of chemical stripping solution to break down and remove the paint layer.
If we were to use stripping solution on a carbon frame, the solution’s powerful decomposition capability would dissolve not only the paint but the carbon itself. Therefore, we remove the paint manually, bit by bit, using sheet sandpaper.
In all honesty, the time required for this manual labor is likely much longer than you might imagine—long enough to be a bit dizzying.
For this reason, we charge an additional fee for the repainting of carbon frames and forks.
Additional Charge for Carbon Frame/Fork Stripping
Carbon frame stripping: 40,000 JPY (excl. tax)
Carbon fork stripping: 28,000 JPY (excl. tax)
You can view our full price list here.
After such a lengthy preparation process, we finally apply the color, finish the piece, and once it is beautifully restored, we deliver it back to you.
Once painted, it isn’t something anyone would ever notice, but I would be happy if you were aware that the repainting process varies like this depending on the material.
Regarding painting lead times as of April 2019.
Powder paint: approx. 4 weeks
Urethane paint: approx. 8 weeks
Please note that these are our current lead times.
If you have any other questions, please feel free to contact us via the Kyutai Paint contact page!