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...It does look a little like matte Hammerite or some other brand of outdoors metal paint.

Cellulose thinners will take off spray-can paint and Hammerite without damaging the original paint underneath...

Excellent, thank you. Will give it ago when I have the time

Getting chrome sq-taper cranks is hard, especially as I want to continue the original Tri flange shape, a star wouldn't look right. Settled for some SR Maxy cranks.
One side polished:

Nice and shiny

Thing with polishing metal all day is you have to imagine that the slow progress is actually advancing your life into a positive realm. Else it's easy to get sucked into the pain and loneliness that comes with sweating over solvents in a workshop for 8 hours.

In an ideal world I would get some mks ar-2 pedals but I think they're too modern. (Also owe somebody £15 so better if I save my coppers) Had a dig in my cave, found these

Kyokuto Top Run, appropriate period, used to be a standard on low end 531 Falcon and Viking bicycles of the era. Nice and deep which will suit this chunky build. Came up right proper:

Really recommend these; easy to disassemble and good stopping power.

Fingers reduced to stumps, time to put the kettle on

Can't say mid 70s Raleigh built racer without mentioning Weinmann brakeset

Will polish up well with a bit of elbow grease, no bench polisher so good ol' rags will have to do

I'm confident in doing a full chrome build instead of a restoration. I'm 50/50 at the moment about getting the Carlton down tube transfers. This is a Carlton Cobra - Nottingham September 1974 - Lugs are 'Crespera'

After getting the chrome cleaned up it's clear that the insides of the BB shell and seat tube are red so it must have originally been one like this :

Wrist gave out after doing headlugs, seatlug and BB shell

Will have to do. Delicate stuff now, putting a square taper spindle in, luckily have correct spindle width in my parts bin. Headset bearings replaced. Centre Pull guide that fits!

On with the show

Problema número dos
Cheese cotter-pin is bent and gnarled from locking and skidding. Penetrating oil, hammer, vice squeeze; nothing works. Pillar drill time

Make-shift punch

Drilled from other side

Alas; Aldi's finest drill bits 0 - 1 BB spindle

Stripped down.
First Problem - Stuck stem wedge in steerer.

Plus-Gas + Various hammers + 3 Days = Risk of noise abatement notice

Time for a cuppa.

Picked up a fixie -

It had suffered much abuse from previous owner. Rear tyre had worn through, much rust, play in headset. Perfect for a slow summer project that should get free admission into the local steam rally.

Plan is to strip down, overhall the frame, build up to a 5 speed for now, maybe 10 speed later, period-ish parts.

those bars are total perfection, stunning

Double chainset, it has the braze-ons

Do some measuring before you buy things.

You'll want to know the frame spacing. Probably a 96 up front and the rear will tell you whether its 5 or 6 speed hub you need.

Don't buy a seatpost until you know the exact diameter, paint and age can make this a hassle and it's best to not resort to shims.

Most likely the canti bosses are for 27" not modern 700c, shouldn't be a problem but will determine the reach needed when you buy a brakeset and have to master centering :)

Also determine if you want to run a single or double crankset, the bottom bracket is important here as you chainline will get messed up if it is wrong length.

Got this really nice 531SL frameset.
As I can't get hold of the decals and I'm short on money I don't want to respray.
Rest of frame is superb, near mint in places.
Odd how the seat lug is so badly hashed.

It looks as if the previous owner has touched up the seatlug with a thick paint of some sort. Although it doesn't feel like paint surface to touch. I find it odd that it has been applied with masking to cover an exact area when whatever was to be covered up would be much smaller than the painted area? Am i missing an old technique here??

Wondering if there is any way I can minimise there overall aesthetic impact of this disaster. Can I strip it off?

please close thread

o

k

I think that's silver Benotto tape, not bare metal.

Ah ha - brilliant - I was confused because I could see some of the brake mounts but of course; race mechanics don't put the extra tabs in to cover up the backs.

Shame LBS don't sell anything like this, will have to get some from fleabay

anti - missing valve cover

Having an idle weekend watching old Tour footage. Started to see a lot of examples of riders mid stage without bartape in videos around late 80s like here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtZj72gyNW4

Just wondering what the explanation is behind this?

Seized stem in steerer. Help. Please.
Have undone the lockring of headset
Removed the stem bolt and wedge thing
Nothing is budging

Have read a lot and I fear this can't be solved, expansion occurs when aluminium oxidises. many people say ammonia poured down the steerer might help as freeing agents are designed for steel.

Anyone want to offer suggestions that don't harm the parts as they are all good quality, 3tt stem and bars, 600 headset, 531c forks.

Really started skating, passion in concrete waves, urethane dreams.

Oh so sumptuous depression, getting turned down a lot, nymphomaniac Christian at sixth form.

I recommend this to you all, very good listening
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdwwjEh8d5g

Just a quick question, do I need to specify a price in the community classifieds? I have a special frame and was expecting to get quite a bit for it, so can I say 'serious offers only please' or similar?

PS: Have you got a steel frame 56-58cm with horizontal dropouts (road or track) that would make a good fixie, by any chance?

Funnily enough the majority of the frames are that size, mostly horizontal dropouts but no track fork ends. Some with gear hangers some not.
Mostly 531, lugged, rust. Haven't had the time to sort it out really. Need to knuckle down. I will put it in the classifieds on here then.
I am also under great stress deciding what projects I want to keep as I think they are promising and what should go. A few of them where made to measure for athletes so I wouldn't want them to go for peanuts.

Thank you all for good advice.

Hoping someone with experience of sales can help me out.

I have a large, and growing, collection of frames. I have bought the bikes originally for parts, stripped them down and stored them, rust spotting and scraped decals but good quality. Some I bought because I wanted a seatpost, or a wheelset and didn't need the space at the time so thought it was a good idea. Now it can't go on.

I need to sell them as I have run out of cash reserves and need a deposit for new let. I am wondering if one has advice on how to get the most for them. I have eBay experience so that is where I went first to look for value estimates. There is huge variation in what frames go for so I suppose best solution is Buy It Now, but there is about 15% fee after commission and paypal. But I don't know what they're worth as some quite rare.

Secondly I thought maybe the lovely folks on here might be interested as there are some good names up for grabs but I don't know if I would be allowed to list them as I don't have much rep and am not located in London.

Thirdly I could set up a marketstall and try and flog them like a 'second hand' cockney jewellers. Or at a bike jumble sort of thing.

Any body have some advice?