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I'm in the process of assembling a Road bike and I've got a frame and forks from entirely different manufacturers which strangely enough kind of go together, unfortunately both are covered in manufacturers logos, before I tried putting them together I was going to simply respray the forks, but now I'm trying to find some way to subtly hide the branding on the fork legs (both inside and outside faces of each leg) without it being too obvious or looking sloppy...
My first thought was to use vinyl and cut some shaped panels to simply cover the branding so it looked "Normal" and maybe put some stickers on top to match the frame's branding.
This would be removable later should I need it to be, but will this simply look tatty/shite? I could mask off and just overspray the areas in question but I kind of want to avoid having to do any painting now if I can...
Suggestions? (helpful or otherwise)...
Suggestions? (helpful or otherwise)...
er, build it and ride it and stop worrying?
Might look better than you think? But if not, carefully colour-matched helicopter tape?
It actually does look "good" so long as you can't read...
its a White/Black Merida Scultura frame (with a rather obvious repair on one of the seat stays now) and a White/black Giant Defy fork, the Whites and Blacks are a pretty good match, I haven't got a decent picture at the minute unfortunately, but the outside of the fork legs have a black panel with "DEFY" cutaway lettering on the bottom couple of inches so it appears in white. I could probably cover that with a bit of reflective tape on either side (not a bad position for it actually) I'd maybe get away with some electrical tape or simply re-cover do the whole panel with black vinyl,
The the inside of each leg is a slightly harder one as they have a full length silver "Giant" Logo to cover, my options so far are full size, shaped silver vinyl panel, or the same in white, dunno that could easily end up looking crap TBH...
I also need to cover up the repair on the rear stay somehow, I can't really be arsed with clear coating it TBH as I may have to examine/strip it off at a later date so yet more Vinyl or reflective tapes might be used, but it's all sounding a bit bodgetastic and scrappy the more I think about covering it with bits of vinyl and tape.
A mate at work has offered me a load of his left over adhesive backed carbon effect vinyl sheet for free, its left over from him doing his motorbikes, but TBH it looks quite tacky IMO. I know I'm being a snob but putting pretend carbon all over a bike made of the real stuff just seems a bit wrong to me, however it would cover a multitude of sins...
What exactly is the problem with having a fork from a different manufacturer on your frame, surely no different to an after-market fork?
If the colour scheme actually matches then even less of an issue!
Coloured vinyl/stickybacked plastic is an easy option to try, can always peel it off if it looks naff?
^This I use black vinyl for a stealthing all the time. Works a treat.
Spray it with Plastidip.
Peels right off if you need to sell, looks nice and is easy to do.
Nobody will notice. Really.
Simply change your name to Giant Defy, hey presto, personalised forks 😉
Similar to suggestions already - Use some of that 3M/Respro adhesive sheet that looks black under daylight, but reflects at night time?
Isn't black marker pen used for this kind of thing?