Somec Mercury road bike - Classic Italo-fluo-fade in "invisible TIG".

So first CP ever.
Long time hang around/lurker/visitor of the classifieds section. IRL friend of @Thuekr some of the Danes and the Gothenburg/Stockholm crowd in general.

I have been through a number of road bikes over the years: from the early Gitane Vuelta, Jan Janssen Sallanches Luxe, Ridley Damocles and up to my current Gazelle Champion Mondial AB. Kinda bad at selling bikes and making place for new ones, like most folks here I reckon.

So I've always loved the look and craftsmanship of Somec frames, then I stumbled over this frame a late night just scrolling through ebay as one does. Bad, but plenty of, pictures and for not much money. In a some what used shape from the looks of it. A Somec Mercury built from Columbus Genius tubing, since Genius was released in -91 it's probably from around 91-94ish. Really nice welding in the polished/invisible TIG fashion, looking forward to riding a "modern" steel frame built without lugs. Kinda hard to date the frame since Somec has such a shitty gallery of their vintage catalogues on their website (but hey, that's more than most other brands!) and there is not much information on their vintage frames on the web.

Frame is on the way home to me in "northern" Sweden and will probably arrive next week so then I'll have a better overview what needs to be done to polish it up to a decent shape! Gonna be built up with Record parts from the "new-old" 10s-era of carbon cranks and the like since that's what I have on hand. I have two pair of wheels at the ready: one pair I built my self around Mack hubs with TB14's and a pair of older Zipp 404's.

Throwing in some of the sellers pics for good measure(I know they are REALLY SMALL..):

Lovely!
I'm also about to pick up a new Somec, hopefully this evening :)

OT, Just e-mail them, Lara @ Somec is very helpful when it comes to info and dating framesets.

Cool project! Had this in my ebay watchlist for roughly a year.

Welcome!
'northern' Swedish?
Does that mean the Gothenburg - Stockholm axis,
rather than Malmo?

Very close to buying this. Glad someone from here did. Interested if You ever sell :)

I had this in my watch list too ;)

Very nicely built frame!

Great find! Following.

Will you repaint and what size is it? Looking forward to see how it turns out!

Ordered some "boring parts" today: a new chain, gonna try a Connex 10SX since I've never rode one, a pair of ITA threaded ultra torque record bb cups and new black campa hoods for my old record levers.

Shame: Nice! When I get my hands on the frame I'll try and mail Lara with some better pictures and maybe find out whats what.

Sig_Arlecchino: Seems I haven't been looking for Somec's for a while then eh :p

mespilus: Well I'm actually in southern of north Sweden aka the middle of Sweden aka Åre. Not so well known for road cycling. More for it's trails, the bike park and Scandinavian Enduro championship ;)

Thrasher: Glad I snagged it, if your looking for something nice in the likes of this size I'm selling my Pink/grey metallic Champion Mondial AB frame when the Somec comes..

übé®_grübé®: Yeah I'm having high hopes for it!

russmeyer: Gracie mille.

SasenFrAsen: Fuck No. Will clean it, get new decals and wax it. If it'll get repainted some day It'll have to be as good as the original fade/air brush..

Stunning found @Shame

What is invisible tig? Just another way to call brazed?

Probably means the welds are covered with filler or that they used some jedi technique to have the weld on the inside of the tubes, definitely not brazed though

I think it just means the welds are filed smooth, leaving a very fine, smooth fillet of weld. However, I might be wrong.

If you sell this frame I'd be interested :)

Thanks @Heldring and @Sam_Doman never heard of the term before.
@Viggen nice bike especially that rear cluster looks so good.

http://www.thefabricator.com/article/arcwelding/tig-welding-when-looks-matter

@russmeyer, @Sam_Doman: I think it really just a very tidy TIG weld with some filing to it afterwards. Don't think any filler has been added afterwards as @Heldring suggested. But I'm not entirely sure, probably one of the things I'll try to get some info on from Somec!

I had a tog/brazed Rossin that had filler around the joints-I know this because it cracked and I wasn't sure if it was the steel or paint so I sanded it back. It was the steel though :/

It's most likely TIG welded since it takes almost half the time you need for a proper fillet

Also you can't fillet braze Columbus Genius, it launched as TIG only and then only later they made lugs for it as well.

Frame arrived today, gonna try and snap some better pictures of it tomorrow. Threw on the strong light A9 headset I had waiting in my parts bin. Unfortunately there was some chipping in the paint on the way here from Italy. Mainly the NDS seat stay, doesn't really bother me much but yeah. Gonna try and find some nail polish or touch up paint and try to make it a tad more respectable.

Also if any one has any good tips on resurrecting slightly pitted and dull chrome they are welcome to chip in! I'm thinking aluminum foil and then some sort of polish/wax.

Whoop whoop!

Coca cola for the chrome, I think?

I used the light abrasive side of one of those cheap household sponges and lots of green soap, worked like a charm

Gonna buy some aluminium foil this afternoon and try and polish up the fork after I quit work today!

Fitted the Record bb-cups yesterday, threads are in really good shape! Went in smooth by hand all the way.

Still waiting to hear back from the transfer/decals dude if they can make a "custom set". Since all Somec transfer sets are sold with only one seat tube decal and I need two..

Some small bits arrived in the mail today, thank china for cheap af titanium bottle cages. Knock off's or unbranded Life Line:

Gave the frame it's first real wash: just water, muc off and water again. Tried rubbing some of the chrome with watered aluminum foil, sure there's a lot of black muck that comes of. Not mirror finish but definitely a lot brighter. Gonna go over it again later, then try to use some polish to get some shine back.

The white colour has sure faded some over the years. All these welds look so neat, I'm really in love with the BB area

Picked up some nail polish that matches the faded white and the blue pretty good, gonna go over the bigger chips and spots that's missing paint and seal with clear top coat later: