I bought a nice used carbon fiber gas tank a year ago and even though I park my race bike inside the carbon fiber is fading. Actually I have a pretty bad noticable spot in it and it is getting worse. Also about a week ago, I put a bunch of spray suntan lotion on and I still had some on my hands and must have rubbed up against my carbon fiber tank during a practice day. I swear that is where I got this gross fading splotch. What can I do to protect it and bring the color back? It could use some TLC, so what can I do? Clear coat? Use a certain cleaner? Use a special kind of wax? Any info will help. Thanks.
I should maybe have mentioned that I live in Taiwan. So a product like that might be really hard to track down, but I will look for it. Im sure I can order it and get it shipped here.
I'm sure its made with epoxy resin and you can buff that with a polish etc. If you can get the stain off it would be a good idea to have a professionally applied clear coat applied. Many of the resins don't have much UV resistance, so keeping it out of sunlight when possible is a good idea. Most of them were never intended be left unpainted.
I've seen this issue a lot on carbon fiber hoods where constant heat is a factor. A lot of times the clear coat lifts and without sanding the entire thing down and reclearing it you might be SOL. This is just from my experience though, a trained bodyman is probabl best to answer your question
Carbon Fiber does not do well under the sun's UV and some epoxy comes with "good" UV inhibitor. Some not, and will fade very quickly. It's best to paint over it to keep it from exposing.
most carbon isn't clear coated and the resin deteriorates very quickly when exposed to uv best thing you can is lightly scuff it with a grey 3m scotchpad and have it clear coated, here is a pic of a hugger i had clear coated, bike was outside all the time and when i sold it a few years later all the carbon still looked like brand new
