years ago i restored my fathers rory o brien and had it rechromed to standard as it was done in the 1950s. I knew that some of the plating chemicals were corosive and put great emphasis on the decontamination of the inside of the frame tubes. Thirty years later the cross tube crumpled at a set of traffic lights as did one of the fork blades. Being a mechanical engineer and a metalurgist gave me the insight to deduce that all those years ago, the caustic dip used in the plating process was not neutralised and this was causing constant decay of the tubes over all that time. The bike was used over this time for time trialling and 650 or so miles a week for training. The little bump or knock that is in a frame is nothing to worry about and can be filled with any proprietry filler and then painted over or can be brazed over and then dressed in.
years ago i restored my fathers rory o brien and had it rechromed to standard as it was done in the 1950s. I knew that some of the plating chemicals were corosive and put great emphasis on the decontamination of the inside of the frame tubes. Thirty years later the cross tube crumpled at a set of traffic lights as did one of the fork blades. Being a mechanical engineer and a metalurgist gave me the insight to deduce that all those years ago, the caustic dip used in the plating process was not neutralised and this was causing constant decay of the tubes over all that time. The bike was used over this time for time trialling and 650 or so miles a week for training. The little bump or knock that is in a frame is nothing to worry about and can be filled with any proprietry filler and then painted over or can be brazed over and then dressed in.