Pete's first project

If you are interested in following in the footsteps of myself and Mr C.Brown, but don’t like hard work and effort, then read no further.................

The madness began after a meeting up with one Charles Brown, an old Freckletonian of whom I have some acquaintance and from there it descended downhill rapidly, which is more than could be said for the rusty steed that I was to spend so much time with.
E-Bay was the source of my next 4 weeks of delirium, where I came upon a sad, tired, old boy, dressed in black with an all over coating of rust, oil, several layers of paint and even more layers of dust. He was rescued from his life of spider webs and moss growth down in Somerset, to a nice bright shiny future in The Village Of Music & Flowers.
A week after purchase, the bike arrived and my first thought was, “Oh my God, what have I done”. The first port of call was the aforementioned Mr Brown who gave me lots of little tips and hints, most of which seemed to be about drinking ????
Joking aside, without Carl, I would not have achieved the end result.
First job was to strip all the components off the frame to get it ready for sanding, filing, grinding, sand blasting, you name it, I did it. The best way forward is to take lots of photos before you start, that way you have a reference point for any tricky reassembling further down the line..............trust me, you will need them. Once stripped off, the frame was stripped of all coatings using a few liberal coatings of Nitromors paint stripper, this is then followed by some good old fashioned wet & dry engineering paper. Use several different grades to get the achieved result and as I also found, it was also worthwhile finishing off with some fine grade steel wool for a super smooth finish. Once all the dirty work has been done, give the frame a good clean down with some finishing wipes (these can be bought from Halfords @ £2.50 per pack of 5). This is quite expensive and to be honest, they are no better than using some neutral baby wipes at a fraction of the cost.
When dry, the frame was given a couple of coats of grey primer, applied in nice even, light strokes, with 15 minutes in between coats. Once this was dried, it was then given a very light touch with the fine steel wool just to take off the spray roughness (very slight so no effort needed). This was followed by 3 top coats of high gloss black again applied in the same manner as the primer but without the steel wool smoothing off. The final 3 coats, was that of a clear lacquer, once again applied in the same manner as all previous layers..........................and yes, all of these layers are done one after the other. The frame then needed a good 48 hours to dry before being passed to Colin Gardner to do some repair work to the fork and bottom bracket bearings (cheers Col). Onto the components........................
I started off with a notion to use a sand blaster to remove the majority of the dust, but having spent an hour doing this, I was covered in more sand than Lawrence of Arabia, a camels toe (easy now tiger) and an Iraqi ditch diggers flip flop all put together. Wire wheel clamped in a drill, plus plenty of wet & dry and Autosol seemed to cure 99% of the problems, but the main component is plenty of elbow grease, which cannot be found for purchase in any shops......I know, I looked.
This is the time when I started to refer back to the earlier photos taken, without which, the job would have been impossible. At one point I was so engrossed in reassembling, that I hadn’t realised that the clock had struck 2am and I was up for work at 6. I managed to rescue and re-use at least 98% of the original bike, which was always my intention – no point doing all of this just to replace parts with new , after market ones, totally defeats the point of doing it really. My only concessions were the following items;
Pedals (old ones were broken and beyond repair)
Sign clips (too rusty to re-use, thanks to Roy Chesworth for these)
Inner tubes
Chain tensioners (rusted beyond belief, never mind repair).

The final finishing touches were worth the small expense to give it a truly high end finish;
A basket from Dunelm Mill (£10)
An old style metal pump (£7.50 from www.cyclesofyesteryear.com)
A vintage style rear mudguard reflector (£2.50 also from the above)
Saddle bag (£10 from www.planet-x-bikes.co.uk)
Kickstand (£6 from E-Bay)
Fantastic carbide front lamp (£12.50 from E-Bay)

The final crowning glory, was, it has to be said, the Freck Chain Gang advertising sign. I tried to come up with something that epitomised what the club was originally set up to achieve, what it was all about, when Sam, Tony and the other original members set out. I got what I wanted and contacted our friend who does the bike signatures and I think you will all agree, that it was the best £15 I have ever spent.

Freck Chain Gang
A Friendly, Social Club
With A Passion For Cycling

Enough Said

So if you wish to continue after reading all of this, then welcome to the crazy and addictive world of bicycle restoration, resident nutters are Mr C. Brown & Mr P. Stewart, plenty of room in the madhouse for more and you are all welcome.