Restorations.....

[munga]

oxalic works great on chrome or raw steel. it will only eat the rust but DO NOT use it on anything alloy and it does not have a great affect on nickle....

Idrcycles, I'm surprised and stoked you dig the viscount so much...I guess I better give you the wheels too I'll shoot you a pm tomorrow.

I'll find you something munga!

as long as it starts with a 'b' and ends in an 'i'

[servicimo]

A celeste green bikini? .....sorry, took me ages to think of that

[ldrcycles]

A very big day lined up tomorrow, thanks to crummy weather and circumstance i have no commitments to keep me away from the resto work. MANY MANY pics to come tomorrow night .

[ldrcycles]

Curses, 2 people called in sick and i had to fill in at the pizza shop this evening, and i'm having trouble uploading the photos.
Didn't get as much done as i wanted, but still managed to get the decals on the Tom Wallace and Peugeot (what is it with French brands and having Eleventy MILLION decals on their bikes, i needed a good lie down after getting all those damn things lined up!) and clear coated them, looking good.

The Mercier is finished! The bar tape is Velo leather look stuff that i got cheap from the LBS, looks good but it's jolly hard to get it on there without crumples/creases, the first side of the bar was tolerable, pulled it really really tight on the second one and it looked significantly better. Practice will get that right i think. The wheels for the Mercier (Araya rims laced to Joytech hubs) should be ready to pick up from the LBS fairly soon.

I'm about to start building the Lawrencia, BB and headset should suffice before bed, and then it should go together pretty quickly tomorrow.
The Tarini will get it's chain, cables and bar tape, though i'm still waiting for the front derailleur adaptor clamp so it won't be completely sorted.

After a bit of swearing and elbow grease i managed to get the tyre off one of the rims for the ladies Healing and it's pretty well unusable, it certainly wouldn't come up well enough for my liking without going back to bare metal and getting rechromed, which will consume far too much time and money. I have a set of 26 x 1-3/8 Westwood rims spare though so i should be able to sandblast and respray those myself to get things sorted.

Then it's just a matter of stripping the Fellini, cleaning it up and popping on the Nuovo Record and Galli brakes, and stripping the continental headset from an old ladies bike so i can use it on the mens Healing when it is ready.
Oh and stripping the 300EX group from a bent Repco Superlite i picked up the other day, just what i need for the Peugeot.

My apologies for the lack of photos but i promise i will more than make it up to you all .

[utedeej]

Do you ever sleep?

[Stuey]

Curses, 2 people called in sick and i had to fill in at the pizza shop this evening, and i'm having trouble uploading the photos.

I'd rather see pics of the bikes.

[ldrcycles]

Do you ever sleep?

, every now and then haha.

Thank you so much for your patience everyone, and as i said, i will make it well worth the wait.
I didn't get as much done today as i hoped, mainly due to time being taken up with these two..


(they were born on Friday morning ).

So instead of getting ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING done, i had to settle for a little bit of this and that.

The Tom Wallace and Peugeot getting a little bit of Vitamin D in between the rain.




Close up of the Lawrencia (Cyan Metallic).




All built up.




The Mercier before.



And after .




And the two together.



Sometime before the L'Eroica i'm hoping to get a group shot with all the rideable old steelies i have, about 15 or 16 in all .

Very satisfied with the day, though i would have liked to get the Tarini built and Fellini stripped and/or built. Back at the girlfriend's place now (all the bikes are at the farm) but i can't help but bring some work with me, so tomorrow i will just strip the parts off that Repco, clean up the CFR frame and get it on ebay (way too small for me) and measure up some rims and hubs to try and work out what length spokes i need for them. The LBS could build them and they would do a lovely job, but there is a price to be paid for that, so it's worth giving DIY a shot.
And the money that i save on that should pay for enough flowers and chocolates to bribe my better half into masking up the Healing rims for me .

[danlemes]

Finally some more progress! Got the decals on the Mercier last night

Just wondering where you get your decals?

[danlemes]

Also, with the Peugeot, did you get it powder coated and then just put on the decals? Sorry, but I'm sort of a new restorer, so just wondering. Thanks, will help out a lot. By the way, your bikes are looking fantastic!

[ldrcycles]

Thanks , most of the decals i get from 'cyclomondo' aka greg softley, who sells on ebay under gts753. They aren't cheap at around $40-50 a set but you're paying for quality, they always look really good. The Lawrencia decals i got direct from Lawrencia Cycles who are still in business, $20 (can't remember if that included postage or not) for 1 black set and 1 white set. Just out of interest, the Lawrencia decals were good quality, but not up to the standard of the cyclomondo stuff. H LLoyd cycles in the UK have a huge range of decals as well, i got the decals for my Dawes from them and they were easy to deal with. I had the Tom Wallace decals reproduced by a local signwriter for about $30 a set (1 headtube, 1 seat tube and 2 down tube decals), so if you have good resolution scans of what you want, it is worth investigating that option. If they need to touchup images or redraw them the cost will shoot up very quickly.

The Peugeot i prepared the same as the others, sand blast and a primer powdercoat, then 3 coats of black from a rattlecan, followed by several coats of clear gloss.

From my experiences with these restorations, i believe the best method for DIY painting is powder coat as a primer, as it is very hard and smooth, which makes the perfect base for painting. 1 light coat of top coat primer, at least 3 coats of colour and then at least 2 coats of gloss clear coat. The clear coat is a MUST, the difference it makes is breath taking.

[ldrcycles]

Oh and i should have mentioned in that last post, it's best to clear coat AFTER popping on the decals as it will protect them. I'll have to make sure when i do the 'how to' that i get all the little details in there.

[danlemes]

Alright, thanks. You have defnately helped. I am looking forward to the "how to", since I ams till not qutie sure on how to get a drip-free coat of paint

[ldrcycles]

There's 3 things for that, warming the can up (in winter sitting it in the sun for a while does a good job, or i've seen a few people recommend popping it in hot water, you want to get it warm but exercise caution, too hot could cause a potentially serious case of dead), shaking the living bejeesus out of the can (i'm talking shake it till both your arms are ready to fall off, and then you're about halfway there, a solid 5 minutes is good) and MOST importantly, moving at a consistent speed. The last one is all about practise, i'll see if i can add a video to the how to, to demonstrate the right hand speed, it took me a few mistakes to learn that.

[brasstinman]

I'd be really keen to see some video and some how to guides on painting as my daughter and I want to undertake a few paint jobs when the weather gets warmer.

[danlemes]

Alright, last thing, where do you manage to get such good frames?

[ldrcycles]

They didn't look so good when i got them! . The Mercier was given to me by another forum member, the Lawrencia i bought off ebay early last year for about $100 (was supposed to be in good condition with just scratches but had paint missing, rust, badly peeling chrome, gouges in the rims etc etc, important lesson learnt, only leave feedback once you have got it out of the box and looked over it properly ). Other than that, look in every skip you see, keep a very close eye out for roadside rubbish collection, i visit the local tips at least once a week, the Tom Wallace and Peugeot both came from the tips (and both were in poor condition when i got them). At the moment i have about 60odd bikes all together, and i've paid for maybe 10. I once found a mid 80s Pinarello frame at the tip, that was a good day .

[Stuey]

Hope you don't mind me jumping in here ldr, but for the guys asking, in my experience the trick with spraying is to know when the paint is just about to run while you're spraying it. It goes from a matte sort of powdery look to shiny, then you get runs. It's this 'fluid' stage where it's shiny all over and smooth, that you want.

You need to practise on something crappy first to get this feel for when it is as glossy as it can be without running, which can alter according to the paint type. If you don't spray enough on, it will always look slightly powdery/matte, and if you spray too much, it runs. Practice is the key.

[ldrcycles]

No worries at all mate, that's good advice, and exactly what i was attempting to say with 'moving at a consistent speed', i'll need to improve my wording if i'm to make a worthwhile how to.

[Tinker]

Such a fascinating read!

What kind of a set up is required for spraying a bike? compressor and run of the mill paint gun?

[redrover3]

When you're talking about a powdercoated undercoat/primer, is that a special type of powdercoat and do you have to go to any particular powdercoater to apply it? Also, do you still have to prep this coat prior to spraying on the undercoat for your paint? Enjoying this thread.
Tony

[ldrcycles]

Tinker, i only use rattlecans. I'm told that using a compressor and spray gun is the 'right' way and will deliver a better finish but after getting the hang of how to get things looking good with rattlecans i'm not really interested in starting the learning process again. The photos speak for themselves as to how good a finish you can get from cans, and i'm not finding any difference in toughness between the ones i've just done and my favourite singlespeed which was professionally done with a spray gun.

Redrover3, i will have to ask the coaters when i next pick up/drop off frames. I rang them up asking about the cost of blasting frames as it became clear the time involved in stripping frames myself (not to mention the indescribable back pain from bending over the things for ages) was adding up to hell of a lot of money. They asked if i wanted them powdercoated as well, and when i said i was going to paint them myself they suggested a primer powdercoat (if for nothing else than to stop them rusting after blasting). It is the PERFECT starting point for painting because it is tough and perfectly smooth. Now i haven't tried painting straight over the top of it as it is so smooth i wondered how well the paint would adhere to it. So i do a light coat of rattlecan top coat primer first, my thinking being that it will give a 'familiar' or 'friendly' surface for the paint to go on. Maybe it isn't necessary but the time and money involved in 1 coat of rattlecan primer is negligible and everything is hunky dory with it, so no reason not to.

[Stuey]

This is good info ldr, thanks. With my rattlecan jobs with Power Plus / Dupli Colour car paints, I use their brand of primer straight on the steel, but when finished the paint chips relatively easily even with loads of coats and clear on top. Powdercoated primer sounds like it's the key, short of using a spray gun.

[danlemes]

At the moment i have about 60odd bikes all together, and i've paid for maybe 10. I once found a mid 80s Pinarello frame at the tip, that was a good day .

Whoa, well, if you ever feel the need to sell them, I'd be happy to buy one, since I am desperate for a vintage frame but its so hard to get one :/

[ldrcycles]

Just a heads up that Repco have spray paint on sale atm, 350g or thereabouts enamel, 3 cans for $5, or $1.60/can .
Limited range of colours but they had the green and white i want for the Healing, a blue that might do the Viscount and gloss clear.

[ldrcycles]

A huge amount of progress since my last post, i've fitted the rear shifter cable to the Tarini . Other than that nothing, although i am hoping to ride the Mercier for the first time on the weekend and see how it settles.