Bike painting?

[Jet the Panda]

What type of paint should I buy to touch a frame by hand with a brush?

I have a frame that I'd like to touch the paint up on. I want to colour match the original paint and I guess the best way to do that is for me to get little pots of paint and mix it up myself. It's just a very small area that I want to touch up.

I'll sand the area down a bit and then paint it up by hand with a brush doing a thin layer at a time. Preferably it will be a type of paint that I can sand a bit once dry. Will clear coat afterwards.

I could possibly get a cheap little air brush, but I really think painting by hand should be fine.

I want an exact colour match and I doubt I can find this in a can. The colour is a weird off white / cream.

[Serge_K]

That's very niche. If you like talking to people, you may bring it to a shop that paints cars. The BMW tuning kind of body shop. They may be able to help you on the spot. The bigger shops typically have a paint system where they can mix paint.
If you want to try your luck online, Angelus paint sells little pots and is highly regarded, they also sell various top coats, hardeners and what not.
The ghettoest version, but it could work, could be to buy a spray can from a DIY shop that may happen to be the same colour, and you'd spray that in a container, or mask around the frame and do a bunch of light coats. If you mask, mask extensively (you'd be spending 10x longer masking than painting).
In principle, the paint itself matters less than the top coat you will use.
If you sand back to carbon, depending on the colour, bear in mind you should use a primer first. But if it's a small area, in principle if you just do coat after coat you should end up with good coverage. A can of primer can cost 5-10 eur in a DIY shop.
I ghetto painted a VB frame, restrosepctively, i feel i should have ordered it black and just used car vinyl decals. I would have made my life easier.

[SirBikealot]

Had the same problem with my cube nuroad in desert´n´black. Not even one year old and Cube can't support touchup paint.
So i headed out to my nearest body painter. They had a device that could scan the paint and then mix up a small amount of paint for me.
But don't ask the price. It is somtething i'd like to forget about. Expensive af…

[00Garza]

Frame painting might be one of the most underestimated tasks out there! I tried it once without a climate controlled environment, my local humidity messed up my results. I'd highly recommend trying a local paint and body shops for quotes at least and compare to what you'd be spending doing it yourself to see if its worth the effort.

[Tijoe]

Back in the polluting good old days, there used to be a lot of enamels and lacquer paints that could be easily painted by brush and could be sanded/blended/feathered.  These days in the world of water based paints and powder coated paints,  it has become very difficult to paint by brush and achieve a finish that looks good.

I recommend you look up some automotive factory touch-up paint companies and ask them what they recommend these days.  The last touch up painting I did was about 10 years ago using an air brush.  Air brushes are inexpensive relative to the cost of paint these days.  (Aliexpress probably sells them too.)

[00Garza]

Stumbling up on this in my insta feed. Might fit your needs.
https://gpaintbikesus.com/

[Jet the Panda]

Back in the polluting good old days, there used to be a lot of enamels and lacquer paints that could be easily painted by brush and could be sanded/blended/feathered.  These days in the world of water based paints and powder coated paints,  it has become very difficult to paint by brush and achieve a finish that looks good.

I recommend you look up some automotive factory touch-up paint companies and ask them what they recommend these days.  The last touch up painting I did was about 10 years ago using an air brush.  Air brushes are inexpensive relative to the cost of paint these days.  (Aliexpress probably sells them too.)

I am going to go with Humbrol Enamel Paints for model painting. Will get a few little pots and try to mix up the colour I need. Shouldn't cost more than £10 total, excluding clear coat.