I stripped my old Carlton road frame today, i had been using it to commute 1 miles to uni (in Sheffield down a big hill and usally back up agian) for the last year or so after buying it for £20 fully built.(from recycle bikes)
Basically it was built badly and half the stuff was nakard, by the time i stripped all the stuff off it i decided that if i was going to re-build it i should do something about the rust.
6 hours later , 1 jar of paint stripper and alot of work with a wire brush i have :
Found it was a reynolds 531 butted frame , which was nice.
I cant decide what to do with it next :
My current thoughts are , Powder Coat and single speed .
Im not sure if you can get things enameled anymore but that would be even better.
What would you do where would you take it to get it done (in Guildford , east Yorkshire or Lincoln)
Also if anyone has a suitable fork they might like to sell me …..(current one is chromed piece of shine junk.)
If you want to get it enamelled, then the usual suspects are Argos (Bristol) or Bob Jackson (Yorks – Leeds?). It would be a shame to powdercoat it, in my view.
If you're going to Bob Jackson's, then you can ask them about forks. Something with a nice curve and rake would be super.
If it was me, I'd paint it a nice colour, run it fixed, fit mudguards and brakes and gurn up and down hills.
ay-up simon, if you find some spare forks i'll take the crap ones off your hands. Other than that I've got a shed full of 12speed racer spares if you'r missing any nuts and bolts.
If you still travel to Sheffield on a regular basis try Edison Cycles in Clowne, proper frame builders and does some nice enameling, did my tourer about 5 years ago, think it was about 40quid or so (one colour). Ring before you go though, he's not always at the shop.
taka they're probably worth at least £100 each if you put "fixie retro" in the ebay listing, what size are they out of interest as id love a smaller frame for my fixed so i can have a stem longer than 50mm
I'd go for a rebuild with period'ish kit, though fixie would be cheaper. I got this old Gios last month (was my old racer in the late 80's)so it's come full circle after twenty years. You'll find loads of useable old stuff on Ebay.
The whole things come up glistening and gleaming apart from the rust near the head tube, for that I'm just going to paint over the rust to halt it, at least it'lllook honest. Bar tapes going on Friday, and I'm riding our local century ride on it this Sunday.
Sorry to hijack your post. Oh and the old boys will stop you at cafes to reminice if you restore it.
Reference your Midget clutch bleeding problem, I usually use a Gunsons Power bleed to push the fluid through, as they can be a bugger to get the fluid to come through any other way.
That pics was as I found it i.e pretty tatty.
I remember those 531/Competition frames mine was a Birds Of Colindale,they were a budget but quality training frame.
If it's going to be a daily commuter, just get it powder coated and keep it anonymous to reduce the likelihood of it going waklabout. Fit mudguards, maybe 1×9 for simplicity.
You can always strip it again and paint it up nicely at a later date if you want to when it's not being used for commuting (Nitromors takes care of powder pretty easily).
i was finishing it off polishing and getting everything shiny then thought hmm if i make it a fixie or single speed (or both using a flipflop) i need to remove the braze on bits.
Can this be done using a oxy-acetylene brazing /welding kit or does it need to be done in a certain way …heating in a certain way to stop wrapping.
I did that to an old steel Kona. I just used a grinder, then a file, then some wet and dry.
Once done there's no going back, I later regreted it and wish I'd built a retro MTB.