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I have an old steel road frame that has quite a few bubbles of rust under the paint. They rub / flake off to leave a rusty patch of steel but there's quite a lot of these patches.
My plan is to strip the paint off eventually and give it a cheap re-spray.
Its an old Major Nicholls which I think is made of reynolds 653, although thats a total guess and based on childhood memories. The frame is at least 25 years old.
Any ideas / clues about how to assess if its beyond repair or does it need to go to a framebuilder for asessment?
Can you do a piccy of the worst examples? and a Major Nicholls is worthy of a decent respray.
Making me jealous anyway.
NDT need 😉
This is the worst one of 3 on the underside of the top tube, similart ones on the topside too
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And its a Harry Quinn not a MN 😳
Yep that looks pretty bad, quite dark. you could try some wet and dry, just dry though to see if you get through to bright steel without wearing down the tube.
so if i don't get through to shiny steel quite quick then its gone too far?
Well I'm no expert, but I've done a few rusty old frames and the worst I've had is some minor pitting after rubbing down.
Usually when I've got the frame the rust is still light orange and rubs away. Any flaking then I'd guess it was terminal.
that said if the frames a good one, whole tubing sections can be replaced.
Have you measured the rear spacing, that'll help aging the frame and tell you what gears you can run.
surely the rear spacing isn't too important as it can easily be reset with a bit of brute force on steel frames
what i found was a few bubbles on my bontrager race had gone right through 🙁 , gently push the rust with a nail see if it gives any.
Realigning the mech hanger is a pain though because when you cold set the frame you are actually splaying it.
Get it blasted, it's the only way you'll find out!