Jesse, the French didn't make bikes difficult, they just made them French! How large is the dia. of the Philippe bar? Why didn't you use a beverage can shim? It won't compress like electrical tape.
A good reason to change 27" rims to 700C is to get the 4 mm extra clearance for mounting fenders -- that's if you don't cause brake reach problems in the process. But the main one is to get a larger selection of tires. It's funny that the bicycle industry has, over time, adopted metric sizing and threading for most items, excepting the bottom bracket. The world would be a slightly more rational place if the Swiss BB had won out too -- go Motobécane!
I think that the reason a lot of frames were fully chromed is because plating is a "dip" process, and if you're going to dip part of the frame it's hardly more work to dip the whole thing. Bianchigirll is right that a lot of the painted chrome area is not polished well enough to be exposed; however, it's a visual thing. Chrome plating on a less polished area is likely to be equally corrosion-resistant as a polished area, or nearly so. What many people don't understand about plating is that the plated substrate generally (always with a really hard metal like chrome) must be polished to the final finish level before plating; there's no going back and bringing a dull or rough chrome finish to a higher gloss level. This polishing takes a lot of work, and adds expense, so manufacturers would only polish the areas where chrome finish would be exposed. In fact, rougher areas would provide a better substrate for paint, anyway. Much of the chrome on bikes was a 3-stage process: plate steel with copper first, then nickel, then chrome -- each metal providing good adhesion to the last, and a softer base for a harder plating. Sometimes only two metals are used, but chrome is not (to my knowledge) deposited directly on steel. There isn't a lot of chrome plating in modern manufacturing because it's environmentally unfriendly, and it's a toxic process for workers; so enjoy what's left of it -- it's both classic and vintage.
Last edited by Charles Wahl; 04-29-12 at 04:49 PM.