Circa 1920 Roadster restoration

[koen]

So just starting this thread to show progress and glean any further information from members. I feel sure I may have posted a picture of this bike before now somewhere on this forum. I bought it at a church "white elephant" sale in Yeppoon, Qld in 1997. The 'curator' of the sale had just given the bike a fresh coat of lime green house paint over everything including handgrips.
I subsequently cleaned it back a bit to see if there was anything identifying on old paint. There was not. To my shame I let it rust more at the beach where we lived so that the shallow engraving on bsa cranks and front hub all but vanished. It had had a new wheel added at some point ..a 3 speed back pedal brake SA hub dated 1954 but I have since used that elsewhere and found an old eadie coaster.

photo about 2006


I tracked down the previous owner and spoke to him, a Mr.Tim Wall, now deceased. It had been his uncle's bike from new? and he figured it to date to about 1920. Any other guesses welcome.

Another photo with a friend's much grander restored Renault.

[koen]

After 20 years of mostly ignoring it I thought I would try to halt the slow rusting away of most of the bike and so just stripped the frame and have started rebuilding the wheels.


The fluted crank pictured is from another bike but it is the original chainring which has been renickelled.

Anyone know what are these pedals?
20170411_163102 by Owen Ron, on Flickr

[koen]

Lazy Good Friday building up the front wheel. Dunlop Welch 28x1 3/8" with BSA hub ...32 holes. I tried to rescue all the spokes I could. They look like they were a fine 15/16 gauge butted spoke with 3/4 nipples and washers. After 100 years of rust some are probably quite a bit smaller. I took off the rust and old paint and sprayed them with a rust converter sealer.
P_20170414_104739 by Owen Ron, on Flickr

[koen]

Well, after being seduced by fb and forgetting about this forum for a while I thought I should complete this thread.
Having completed the restoration the bike doesn't look any different but I feel it may at least last another 50 years.
I wasn't intending to ever ride it but did take it out for a short jaunt with a steam train recently
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[zedries]

great work on keeping that piece of history alive Koen!