Orange Ram Touchup Paint

[christian poppell]

Hi Gang,

You know when you're in the process of doing something and there's that voice that says, "you should really do this some other way". 

I put a small nick in the top tube of of my orange Rambouillet and I'd like to touch it up. Its not big, but the top tube was somehow pristine. The Cyclofiend site has a color from Testors but it is now discontinued. Has anyone used something and had success?

Thanks all and listen to that voice!

Christian

Berkeley, CA

[Joe Bernard]

I would contact Joe Bell through his website. He didn't paint those but he's the paint master and can probably send you something pretty close to the color.

[Bill in Roswell GA]

Christian, 

Joe is right. Contacting Mr. Bell is appropriate. 

I have a Riv Ram with the pearl orange paint (been in love with that color for 20 years). As I understand it, that was a 3 step process to get the pearl finish according to Grant. My Ram just has a few nicks here and there, not show stoppers but I wanted to hide them. 

The closest stock paint I've found is on a Lamborghini Huracan. I found an orange one on the local dealer's lot (living in Atlanta you can find any car as one can in CA). 

Automotive Touchup makes a Lambo C5 that does the job. I applied a thin coat 3 times. Let it cure a couple days. Wet sand to blend with surrounding paint. A layer of clear coat and more wet sand. From 3 feet away my old eyes can't see the difference in most lighting conditions. For me, that was good enough and only someone looking to find it would be able to. If you had to cover a larger area, one might notice a slight change in shade. 

Good luck!

Bill in Roswell GA

[Bill in Roswell GA]

I thought he retired? 

[Bill in Roswell GA]

It's a metallic orange, BTW. Any other orange wouldn't match.

[Joe Bernard]

He just finished my Riv custom and I just talked to him a couple weeks ago. Go here, get your frame painted, it's worth every dollar!

joebell.net

[Bill Lindsay]

I agree that if I wanted the best possible paint job, I would also contact Joe Bell.  I imagine that the paint job that would replicate the color of an Orange Rambouillet and improve on the quality would be a ~$1200 paint job, and there probably is no better craftsperson on earth to do that $1200 job.  

I'm not so sure that the original poster should expect Joe Bell to engineer a three-part touch-up paint solution for his Orange Ram.  First off, I don't know that Joe Bell sells touch up kits.  Second of all, since he didn't have anything to do with the original paint job, it's not certain he knows exactly which base, which color, and which pearl top coat would be needed.  There is probably no harm in asking, but I think of Joe Bell as a $100/hour tradesperson, and I think generating a custom 3-layer touch up kit to match the Orange Ram as a 2-3 hour job if he has the frame on hand, and may be impossible if he doesn't have the frame on hand.  If I was the OP and was going to email Joe Bell, I would limit my ask to anything he knew off the top of his head, like "is he familiar with the orange ram?  Does he know the three colors used?  Does he know of a way to obtain those products?  Does he offer a touch up service and what is the general pricing?"  

Rather than go directly to the most-skilled, and highest-price bicycle painter, I think of the OP wanting to do something cheap and reasonably effective.  I'd start by asking Riv, who at least has some obligation to provide supporting information for the Ram, even if the OP is not directly Riv's customer for that particular Ram.  I would not try to pump an individual tradesperson for information unless I had the sincere intention of hiring that tradesperson, or if I already had pushed a significant amount of business through that tradesperson.  

Those are my 2 cents on this topic.

Bill Lindsay

El Cerrito, CA  

[E. Ricky Creek]

I had a thought about a month ago that it would be great if there was a collective effort to list touch up paint for Riv colors. It was nice to see how quickly the Riv Reader Archive came together as well as the models, years spreadsheet. I would personally benefit as I'm brutal on my bike's paint jobs and have many different colored Riv's in the garage. I have noticed also that Testors is no longer making some of the classic colors, like the Atlantis green, but Waterford has a close approximation. Even folks that have discovered nail polish that works with some colors. Since the Riv Timeline spreadsheet (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JRuMAwuQ-Rc6bQXCBmfkmXA9jMMF5zBdBIyUOmkruYM/edit#gid=0) is editable, would it be okay to add a column with touch up paint/polish? 

[Joe Bernard]

My advice was:

"I would contact Joe Bell through his website. He didn't paint those but he's the paint master and can probably send you something pretty close to the color."

The point being he probably knows what an orange Ram looks like and might have something at the shop he can sell this fellow. I wasn't implying Joe Bell could generate an exact duplicate of the paint, and clearly he may just say he doesn't have anything and doesn't sell touch-up. It was also an effort to alert folks to JB's site. You're welcome.

[Joe Bernard]

Btw my advice was also because - as we see in this thread - no one ever knows what the heck to use for touch-up paint on an orange Rambouillet. I've been reading posts on this for 19 years and it's a very particular paintjob in Japan that Riv can't even replicate now.

Which is a background knowledge on Ram paint I just sort of assume everyone here has, but of course that's not realistic. So I thought maybe Joe Bell could help and you could buy it from him. Is what I thought.

[christian poppell]

Hey Ricky,

a good start would be checking out the Cyclofiend site for paint suggestions:

http://www.cyclofiend.com/rbw/color.html

You're right, Testors doesn't quite have the range they used to in the past but they do sell a reasonable amount of colors in small amounts that would work well for touch ups. The funny thing about nail polish is the customer base doesn't seem too interested in colors that would good on bikes as well. If they made a color to match the ram, i might have to paint my nails, good time to wear the cut off gloves! :)

Everyone else,

Joe Bell would say no if he wasn't interested in selling paint. In fact, he might have a suggestion where to go searching for paint. Hes a professional and has been in the business for a while, I'm sure hes had his fair share of strange requests. 

Rivendells general position on touch up paint is just to prevent rust, not so much to perfectly match the existing paint. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33gojC_e5hU

I'm not looking for an exact match or perfection. Maybe something like the Subaru tangerine orange touch up paint would do the trick. Ill be riding the ram around looking for one to see if they match :)

https://parts.subaru.com/p/Subaru__/Touch-Up-Paint-Tangerine-Orange-Pearl-Top/71900922/J361SFJ020A1.html

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/1f/26/f8/1f26f80693ef3a53011b058b71e00e30.jpg

Thanks again all for the suggestions,

Christian

Berkeley, CA

[ascpgh]

Christian, My orange Rambouillet came unpainted in the  shipping container and was painted by Joe Bell. I was tracking its every move since I intended to ride it across the country with a group meeting in Yorktown, VA on a set date. Even though it was the premier choice for me and a production model, every step conspired against me. It arrived at 4:30 pm the evening before I went to VA.

In its service life my Rambouillet has accumulated a number of scrapes (no dents), the worst being the right seat stay where a doofus who futzed with the bike as it leaned on a high pedal on a short planter wall. As it tippled he grabbed the handlebar at the bar end shifter and guidded 10-11" of orange paint across the top edge of the wall producing a wide jagged scarf through the depth of paint exposing a little metal along the way. Some mental defense mechanism prevents me from recalling the non-crash event repeating the the same on the left seat stay as well. This is where I diverged from Grants's "beausage" thoughts about finishes and termed my own, "beausavage".

When my rear brake bridge broke loose requiring rebrazing, the seat stays lost another sad amount of paint as well. That's when I contacted Joe and asked him, RBW owners bunch & iBOBs about a respray. $1200 was the going number and I chose beausavage seeding the money towards a new frame and fork. I did a rattle can cream panel of each stay and the bridge. 

Andy Cheatham

Pittsburgh

[Nick Payne]

If you take the frame to a paint store, they should be able to scan it and produce a matching colour paint, though it will just be plain and not metalflake. Alternatively, see if you can find some orange metalflake nail polish that's a close match. I found some blue metalflake nail polish that is a good match for the paint on my Romulus, and I touch up any scratches through to the bare metal with that.

Nick

[Ray Varella]

Ford and Toyota both have a pretty nice metallic orange in their current lineup.
Parts departments at dealers often sell touch up paint.
I’m not suggesting either is a good match but they are both nice shades of orange.

Whenever I have needed touch up paint for a bicycle, I’ve ridden my bike to the drugstore, wheeled it over to the model section where they sell little jars of Testors, and found something really close.
Those same drugstores sell nail polish too and I’m sure they would be thrilled to help you match your nails to your bike?
If you said “my wife/girlfriend loves this color and I want to surprise her with some nail polish”
I’d tell them that’s what I was trying to do.

Ray

[Bruce Curry]

Just pulled the trigger in the Lamborghini Huracan Orancio Borealis C5C5 touch-up paint from Touch-up as others have mentioned. Will let you know how it looks when it is received.   See link below.  

https://touchupdirect.com/touch-up-paint/lamborghini/huracan/#pf-year=all&pf-color=111820&pf-product=jar   Leave the year blank.  Good luck!  Bruce 

[Bill Lindsay]

Which kit did you buy?  The $36 "Just the color" one?  Or the $46 "Essential" kit?  Or something else?  

Best of luck with it.  It sounds like the right 3-layer approach, provided the color is right.  

Bill Lindsay

El Cerrito, CA

[Bruce Curry]

I did the 3 tubes with clear coat for $50 less 10% coupon. There were several other options but I didn't need all the extra gloves/sandpaper/etc. Some of the other oranges looked a little closer on the ap but the c5 was recommended. When it arrives I'll repost so all of the other creamsicle Rams can get their orange on.

[Corwin]

Hi Bruce -

I recently came into a great orange Ram (purchased from a list member here). I was wondering how your touch-ups turned out.

My frame is in great shape, but does have a nick or chip in a few places.

I also see on the Cyclofiend site, that Boyd's Roadstar Florida Orange Pearl" #52920 is recommended. This seems to be the same as Testor's 52920. And does not appear to be readily available.

Thanks in advance for your help,

Corwin