Nemosengineer 

There I was minding my own business cruising the bay of lost souls, anyway I bought a 1974 Raleigh Professional frameset from a seller I have done business with who is local to me. It was love at first sight, her rusty patina took decades to develop, sitting in a shed in the high desert of California. Christine is structurally sound with excellent threading, no damage, no internal corrosion or external pitting, however there is some chrome loss (75% remaining) and near as i can tell the frame and fork are arrow straight. So I will call this a good buy at the price.
The current work is arresting the corrosion and salvaging what is left of the paint, the goal is preservation of the finish as I'm very fond of the patina. The corrosion removal is accomplished with rags soaked in Evapo-Rust and Surf City Killer Chrome Polish, both mild enough to leave the paint intact but stout enough to dissolve the rust. Final preservation will be a wipedown or two with boiled linseed oil to seal the surface followed by multiple coats of wax. I'm about 50% done with the preservation in the photo below.



The Starting Point.




As for the build, it will be a rusto-mod, transmission will be 7700 Dura Ace as shown below.





Hubs are a combination of large flange Campy Record front and Sun XCD 130mm rear hub, clamped with early Campy Record straight QR's, not quite a matched set of hubs but in the spirit of C&V. The Sun hub is somewhere between England and my front door.




The headset is a nice alloy Campy Record. The ink logo will be removed.



That about it for now, more stuff as it happens.
: Mike

AdventureManCO 

Fun!

wedgeSG

Fahrenheit531 

Soon I'll forget where I heard it, but I too will remember that line. Good stuff!

Narhay

You could try an oxalic acid bath for the rust

Nemosengineer 

Hi Narhay,
Thank you for the advice, because the inside of the frame is corrosion free and the paint is very thin I am using the gentlest means possible to remove the corrosion and leave what's left of the paint. The photo below is an example of the look I'm going for, just not as extreme. The idea is to preserve the weathered finish and let the age shine through.



: Mike

verktyg 

I've always like the silver and black Raleigh Pros. Missed out on a number of them on eBay.

Having grown up in the rust bowl and worked in a steel mill, I can SMELL rust. To that end, I've avoided buying any bike or frame with any visible rust, that is until last year.

The lavender Raleigh Competitions from the early 70's started popping online and they piqued my interest. Late one evening in February last year, I made a bid on one of them on eBay. I accidentally bid $100 to much. Anyone else done that?

Anyway after I got the bike there was so many things wrong with it that the seller credited me back $100.

My excuse for buying the bike was I wanted something to ride on the dirt sections of Eroica CA. Didn't make it to the affair last year but after I went through the bike I rode it for much of the year so I got my money's worth out of it.

My only rust bucket. eBay picture, the rust is primarily on the underside of the top tube. I can't see it when I'm riding so I don't think about it.



After photo:



The bar tape sort of matches the rust!



Anyway, I'm looking forward to doing some gravel grinding on this bike.

verktyg

bwilli88 

I would not use boiled linseed oil for a finish on the outside of a bicycle, use clear spray Krylon

belacqua

rusto-mod, lol

Nemosengineer 

Thanks everyone for your replies and thoughtful suggestions. Christine is living up to her name and almost building herself, parts are showing up right on schedule.
Things that showed up today... First a nice Brooks Professional with the cantle plate stamped B73, so if you believe in the date stamp fairy tail, the seat would be correct for the bike. This has to be the thirstiest Brooks I have ever seen, three coats of Proofide an hour apart and it's still sucking it up, That's a good thing as it came out of the box I couldn't tell if tt was brown or black, it's black with reddish highlights in the sun.





The Dura Ace 118.5 bottom bracket also arrived today.



So with all this Dura Ace stuff, I would guess some one is wondering how I'm going to shift it? Old School Baby!!!




That's about it for tonight, The next installment will be the Mafac Competition brake build up with more than a few tweeks.
: Mike

Mitkraft

Feldman

You're doing a really smart picking and choosing of eras in your build. I recently built a customer a pair of wheels on those XCD hubs--shiny Pacenti rims, re spaced a 7 speed cassette with 9 speed spacers and a
9 speed high gear cog. He has a bike with 120mm spacing that can use Shimano 9 speed rear shifting now.

squirtdad

That is like beware of the old guy on the ski lift with duct taped boots and this years race skis

AngryFrankie

Hanging around the co-op the other night, I saw that someone had chucked a Super Course MKII into the recycling. I thought it was worth saving and brought it in and looked it over. It has that same sort of light rusting on the surface of the tubes. I'm convinced Carlton was doing something with the paint job that allowed it to rust under the paint. That said, the professional is one of my favorites and I've tried more than once to secure one in my size. That bike might be worth a repaint.

Nemosengineer 

Thank you everyone who has replied to this thread, lately I have been working weekends plus extended hours and I'm sorry to say I do not have the brain space to reply to everyone at this moment, I very much like your replies as it helps with my motivation to keep the project moving.
Little successes, the rear dropouts cleaned up nicely but I have the wrong length screws...





So... McMaster Carr to the rescue, now I have a lifetime supply for $20.00





Cleaned and removed the forging flash from the stem.



The Ambrosio Excellence rims showed up, NOS from England.







Best Wishes To All, Thanks Again: Mike

samkl 

Can you explain that? I don't get how you can have 9 speeds with 120mm spacing.

Nemosengineer 

More like 7 speeds, see the attached video for how it's done.

https://www.veloduo.co.uk/blogs/news...m-oln-cassette

: Mike

Nemosengineer 

I'm having fun here in the Bike Forums, lots of great people, and tons of wonderful ideas. Back to the project... Tires and tubes and bar tape all showed up today, but the Item I really need is the Sun XCD rear hub. For a change I am having the wheels built first as it makes fitting of the cockpit easier with fewer changes as the bike goes together.
I think I have found a wheelbuilder, a shop in San Diego called Jet Bicycle Wheels (https://www.jetbicyclewheels.com/about), So the plan is to go have the conversation about wheels and take it from there.



Raleigh Pro's are interesting frame sets with alot of minor changes as production evolved. One of the more interesting changes was a low trail fork that was fitted during late 1973 production for a short period of time, Christine has the low trail fork. This was kind of a surprise as I was planning the build, some things you have to run with, so the build has a randonneur-ish kink to it, hence the wide range gearing, It will run the small T.A. front rack (this also drove the decision to use Mafac centerpull brakes), decaleur, and a compact rando bag. Good, bad, or ugly we will all find out how this works.



: Mike

Nemosengineer 

Making progress, Deburred and deflashed Mafac Competition brakes in a scotch brite finish waiting final polish. Test fitted the front brake in the T.A. rack, no issues. the rack will be holding up a Ostrich F-104N handlebar bag.





: Mike

Nemosengineer 

The UPS guy dropped off a nice Campagnolo aero seatpost today, I bought it because it's pretty and sleek, and it was what was available in a 27.4 mm size. The funny thing about that is everything I have read says 27.2 mm??? So in the traditional English practice of running out of the correct size seat tube, this frame has a 27.4 mm seat tube all the way down to where the butting starts, it was not reworked or reamed.



The Sun XCD hub had to be reordered as the original vendor refunded my payment after waiting 25 days... The good news is the new vendor, Velo Duo Cycles in England shipped the day after the hub was ordered and is currently going through customs in Los Angeles. So I'm really happy about this and it should be at my door maybe by Saturday!!!




: Mike

Nemosengineer 

Tonight I have my "Jan Heine" on, I'm playing with a new Tanaka decaleur and Ostrich F-104N rando bag. Did you know that the Tanaka decaleur only fits threadless stems... That is true, as configured it mounts to 1 1/8 inch or with the optional adapter 1 inch threadless stems. if you want it to fit a 22.2 mm quill stem you have to make or have made a custom split bushing adapter of the following dimensions...

O,D. 1.125"

I,D. 0.874"

O.A.L. 0.825" Split the bushing along the major axis with a ,125" end mill. This split bushing took less than half an hour to spin out at home, it's very easy to make

The end result is a rock solid mount and to my eye looks pretty good. The Tanaka decaleur is a bolt on fit for the Ostrich F104 bags and makes for a easy installation. The overall quality of the bag and decaleur is excellent, the combination sits at bar level in combination with the T.A rack. The only thing left is to build a cleat that firmly engages the T.A. rack, the cleat will attach to a stiffener that will be installed inside the bottom of the bag.







: Mike

nlerner

That’s an impressive build! FWIW, I also had a Raleigh Pro from that era that took a 27.4mm post. Weird!

eeuuugh

Love how that stem turned out. I'm curious about your polishing process--I've been trying to improve my hand polishing, had ok results working from 220, to 600, to 1500 wet. At this point I've experimented with buffing wheels and polishing compound on a dremel, but my results have been cloudy and streaky. How high of grit do you go by hand? Do you use a buffing wheel? Any advice on polishing compound?

Nemosengineer 

I think thats the real beauty of high end English bicycles, everyone of them is an individual and no two alike. Thanks for the complement!!!

: Mike

Nemosengineer 

Generally I will start out with deep cleaning and corrosion removal using brass brushes. If the part is corroded bad enough or the part I want to polish is anodized, I will use easy-off oven cleaner to strip the anodizing and corrosion or a 24 hour soak in pine-sol diluted 50-50 with water for removal of general surface corrosion if the part is not anodized. Next step is to go over the part with 3M extra fine gray scotch brite pad in soapy water until I have a uniform non reflective surface.
At this point I decide what work is required to remove parting or forging lines, and blend or remove any damage that may exist. this is done with an assortment of swiss files (I use chalk on my files to keep the aluminum from sticking to the file and being drug through the finnish), as shown in the photo below.
After the part is fully detailed start your sanding with 320 grit or finer, then 600, 800, and finally 1500 grit, at various points in the process I will get the part out in direct sunlight to see what I have missed and where more work is required as I always miss something.
When I'm happy with the result of all my sanding, I use Mothers Mag polish and various soft rags and it may take 2 or three polishing sessions to get the result I want. As a side note various alloys of aluminum will take a polish better than others, harder alloys will polish the best, if I'm working on something from France or a softer alloy do a final buff with very fine scotch brite and skip any sanding beyond 600 grit, then polish from there as the really soft alloys contain a lot of zinc and dont polish well, usea good car wax after polish.
Anyways that's how I do it, and for me I view the process as Zen time and it makes my OCD happy.



: Mike