Bicycle Restorations

 So a lot of time has gone by from the last post, to this. Encouraged by Sophie to pull my finger out and get the bike finished, she actually decided to lend me a hand.

After spending the best part of two hours cleaning up all the overspray from the primer coats, I decided I would wait for a calm day where I could spray outside.  Today, perhaps one of the hottest days there wasn't a breath of wind, so decided I would go for it... BEFORE AFTER So the paint from spray.bike was a good idea and I didn't get any runs, which was a real bonus, however, not sure if it was my spraying technique or the heat, the finish was a real matt finish with a texture like fine sandpaper. I did read that after 30 minutes you can flatten the finish with parchment paper, but I think this is where the heat was against me in that the paint had gone off really quickly. To resolve this, I wet sanded and flattened the paint.  So although I now have a smooth paint, it is a bit patchy.  Looks like I will give this another coat, in the garage, this time making sure I cover EVERYTHING up with dust sheets...

Spent the weekend spraying two coats of primer on the bike, I still have a tendency to either spray too quickly and end up covering the garage more than the metalwork, or, spray too slowly and end up with some runs in the paint.  That was easy to resolve with a light wet sanding, but yet to find the balance between the two. I am hoping that for the top coat I won't have this issue, I have found a paint from spray.bike  that sprays on like a powder coat, but dries like a traditional rattle can.  The results I have seen across the internet are impressive, so hoping that this helps with the final finish.  Anyway, here are the results from the primer coat:

So after lots of work and an average job of using body filler, I am happy that I eventually got the frame into a condition that it's ready for priming.  I know it won't be perfectly smooth, there will be some smaller dimples, but once it's all painted up, I hope the eye will be focusing elsewhere on the bike.  

Over the summer, given the weather was so lovely, I was riding bikes rather than fixing them up.  Now it's not as nice, I've found myself tackling the Cruiser again.  The paintwork was very chipped and as well as one dent in the main cross tube, there were many dents in the mud guards.  New mud guards cost over £70 (inc. shipping) so going to see how both these work out with some car body filler and sanding.

Not only was today a monumental day, Emma and I celebrated our 18th Wedding Anniversary, but I also go the Shimano 3 Speed internal Nexus hub back together... with no parts left over! I gave the tyres a good scrub with soap and bleach and used a copious amount of metal polish to give some sparkle back to the spokes and rims.  Really looking good. The steering stem is still ceased in the front forks..will get more aggressive with that tomorrow...

Well nearly...I've managed to strip the bike down all accept getting the handle stem tube free.  That appears to be ceased well and good. So while that is soaked with WD-40 and tinkered with daily to try to get it free I have cleaned the grubby white wall tyres and polished up the wheels.  Once dry I am very tempted to use plimsoll whitening to get them even whiter! The Shimano hub was really stiff and grungy, so in a brave moment I have taken that apart too, let's hope I can get it all back together! The photo of the crank and front chain ring was taken before I started to clean it all up.  All came up really well, but the chrome plating on the crank arms is peeling off.  My plan is to actually sand it off to a convenient point, make good the rust and then spray the entire crank with smooth silver Hammerite paint.  This should give an even finish and also protect the steel.

I really enjoyed the process of restoring and building my first bike.  The Carlton Single Speed bike is a keeper for sure. So now I am working on a second bike.  It's a 1990s Schwinn Beach Cruiser This bike will need: A respray, there are a large number of chips and scrapes A good polish of the chrome elements Dents taken out of the mud guards Service of the 3 speed coaster brake hub New brake cables and components Someone to buy it!

The last few weeks have been a waiting game, the last few items ordered online have taken their time to arrive, the last being the brake cable end stops.  So while I had everything else together, I had no way of using the brakes. Now that it's all together and the first shake down ride complete, I am very pleased with this project.  What do you think? It's been a great project to do over the past three months, i've learnt a lot: Stripping the bike down and removing the paint took longer than I had imagined You use a lot more paint that you think, in fact I would say that I could have done more coats of paint, or been better at those that I applied Finding the right bottom bracket axle, front chainring combination is hard, in fact, I am not entirely satisfied with what I ended up with, but it works The single speed conversion hub is a genius pice of kit! Cyclecross in-line brake levers are no good if you want to have a front and bac

One week after the clear coat was applied, I can start to put the bike back together....well with the bits that I have, even if they are temporarily off of one of my other bikes. The forks, brake callipers and modified original handlebars all went back on nicely, but when I started to size up the outer brake cables, it was clear that the cyclocross levers were not going to work. I bit of polishing on the original Weinmann levers and I actually think these look so much better. Still a list of thing to source, but starting to look really good...

I think I am trying too hard to be a perfectionist. After wet sanding the gloss coat ready for the decals, I sanded a little to heavy, or in some places the gloss coat was too thin. The up shot was that I sanded back slightly too much and in two places you could see the metal shining through. The consequence was, more sanding, more painting, hey ho. However, by the end of today I had flattened out the paint ready for the lacquer, but before I do that next week end, I was able to put the decals on. These are a replica of the ones on the original frame and I think they set the colour of really well... In between odd jobs I also wrapped the handle bars with some nice leather look bar tape...

So the primer coats have all applied well and in between coats I wet-sanded to flatten the surface.  On Bank Holiday Monday I went for the first gloss coat on the front forks. It seemed to adhere well, but I was not too worried as the instructions for the lacquer coat tells me that I need to wet sand with 1200 grit the colour coat before applying.  So if I do get any funny patches, I can sort that out with some fine sanding.  The forks after two coats of white gloss came out OK... This was the frame after two coats of white gloss as well... After closer inspection (and after I ran out of paint) I think it needs another coat or two, especially as I have to wet sand before the lacquer coat.

They say all the work is in the preparation, and they're not wrong, while last week I managed to sand the paint off the tubes with an electrical sander, this weekend I was left with the task of hand sanding all the joints. Being a vintage frame, all the joints are not butt welded like a modern frame, they have intricate lugs that hold the tubes which are then brazed into place. Anyhow, 4 hours or sanding got me to the point where I could spray the first coat of primer... On Sunday I wet sanded the primer very lightly to ensure it was smooth and applied a second coat.  While that was drying, I got to work on the brake callipers.  The ones that came with the bike will work with more standard 700c road rims, so these just needed some cleaning up.  You can see how a bit of elbow grease and Autosol did the trick with a before and after shot... I have a load of odds and ends on delivery, handle bar tape, brake cable inner and outers and brake cable cutters.