1930's raleigh build

I'll start off with the outline of my build here i suppose. Some thoughtful person recently decided to relieve me of the hassle of having a bike and it didn't happen at the best time for me financially so I'm left to hoke around in my shed and see what i can come up with on a pretty small budget. I like the combination of polished steel/brass/wood which i'm going to try and incorporate into the bike

The raleigh came to me from someone on here in this condition, I stripped it all back, polished the frame, changed up the tyres to some cream schwalbe delta cruisers and used it for maybe 6 months like that.

Sadly the lacquer that i'd used on the frame had been scounged for free of a paint supplier we deal with in my work and it wasn't really up to the abuse of a winter bike so it pretty quickly started to chip off and the frame started to rust. I ended up using a different bike when summer came around and put the raleigh in the shed where i 'borrowed' bits from it now and again untill it was just the frame looking sad in the corner. Then my regular use bike was stolen and I was snookered.

So here we are now. I've long since got over the novelty of walking everywhere so the plan is to be back on the road again in a week or so.

Roughly put together with the parts I had just to check that the frame will run the 700's I've got for it.

My plan was to set it up running on these sturmey archer 5 speed hub brakes and use the original stainless 26" as they are an absolute deathtrap with regular brakes if there is any sign of moisture at all. I got ahead of myself and went and bought this wheelset without checking that the rim holes and hub holes all worked together, which they didn't.
So the new plan is to run it on this 700 wheelset with some nice gumwall tyres that all being well I'll pick up tomorrow.

The headlight came from ebay ages ago but I'd never got round to using it for anything after I restored it. I'll convert it to battery powered in the next few days. It's sitting a bit low at the moment and I'm not sure it will clear the tyres once they're on so I'll be extending the mounting bracket.
before

after

When I'm an old man I'll be one of those people they find living in the only empty room buried alive in a mountain of old newspapers, I'm a definite hoarder when it comes to bike bits and anything mechanical/scraps of wood/little bits of metal that might be needed at some time in years to come which is why i keep things like this:

It's the seat base from a 1950's coventry eagle ladies bike, I cut an inch or so from either side and welded it back up to give a slightly better shape. I'm still not convinced about it though, I don't really like the shape of the side support so I'm going to have a play around with that and see if i can morph it into something a bit nicer. I'll make up a new leather top for it and probably polish up the other visible metal, I quite like the hammered look of the front piece but I can see that being too comfortable if it's left exposed.

As far as painting is concerned I'm going for a grey of some kind with the chrome masked on the bottom 1/3rd of the forks, I'll have a snoop around in the paint cupboard at work and see if anything catches my eye.

I've been playing around with making wooden grips for a while now and I think this would be a good project to try them out on

not a fantastic photo of my progress so far with them but I'm sure you can get the idea. I'm using sapele, solely because i like the grain/colour, its fairly easy to work with, and i had some already. The idea is to have it as 10 or so 8mm sections mitred together to go round the bottom curve of the bar and then a straight section for the end, I've got high hopes for it looking nice but I've never tried it before so it may end up being pretty uncomfortable. we shall see.

I'll update this thread as I go and hopefully there should be a bit of progress every day untill i'm done.

That front light is amazing.

With the grips you could probably get a similar effect using leather, like on Estwing hammers. May be marginally more comfortable...maybe!

I like the look of that, I'm pretty keen to keep them wood though if they are useable, i've a few other little wooden bits on the bit so it would be nice to keep it in the same kind of theme. I don't know the technical term but the cable guides/stops? on the brake levers will be wooden, sapele again, turned on the lathe and the rear light hopefully.

I had a wooden bike once.....

Wooden wheels, wooden frame, wooden crankset and chain.......

It wooden ride.

Sorry, I'm hungover. Top project, looking forward to seeing this progress :0)

interesting project

with this period of bike mud guards might not be out of place. I know you can get old steel ones on ebay but they tend to be a bit overly expensive. For your consideration might I suggest something like this bike has :
last time I was in my LBS I saw some lovely aluminium ones. Random google search gave me these: http://www.racerrosabicycles.co.uk/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1&products_id=49

I don't mean to be pushing my ideas onto your build, just thought I would suggest. Hope it goes well.

Jake

I've made good progress since my last update and its looking on track to be finished for the weekend. Picked up some panaracer gumwalls last night and bought some new tubes and bottom bracket bearings today.

I'm pretty much through with the painting, spent a few hours on sunday night taking off the rest of the old lacquer and prepping the frame. I started with 3 coats of primer with an hour above the heater and sanded back with p1500 between coats. I left for a day and then the same process again with the top coat, In the end I went for ral 7024 with the chrome ends left on the forks.

I still need to give it 3 clear coats just to make sure its nice and hard but curiosity got the better of me so i untaped the forks to see how my masking had held up and I'm pretty satisfied with it.

Keen observers will notice the the masking on the fork arms isn't quite at a symmetrical angle but I can live with it.

Another (very careful) dry run build up to see how it's looking so far.

I think what I'm not liking about the saddle is that it's a bit stubby and doesn't really look in proportion to the rest of the bike. I'm going to extend it by maybe an inch or so at the front and see how that looks.

Tomorrows plan is to polish up the crankset, headset cups and rear light and if london decides to rise above 3 degrees tomorrow evening i'll brave the shed to finish off the grips.

All that's left after that will be:

• clear coat frame + rear light
  
• make brake arm mounts
  
• true the wheels
  
• wire up the lights
  
• figure out what i'm doing for pedals
  
• buy a chain and the cables
  
  

and rest

Looks absolutely fantastic. Brilliant project. Personally I would add a lugged stem (or GB Spearpoint... not quite 1930s but a similar look) and some Soma Lauterwasser bars, but it's really nice just as it is.

pretty much finished on time to a useable standard. I've been using it for almost a week and all the minor adjustments have been made so it's riding pretty smoothly now.

I gave up on the homemade/modified saddle and went with a san marco rolls instead, inevitably mine wouldn't have ended up as comfortable as a real one and probably would have looked a bit bodged.

At some point soon I'll get some black outers for the front brake and gear cables.
I still haven't sorted out the lights yet but It's a pretty rare thing for me to cycle in the dark anyway so its not a problem yet.

Those grips look very nice, how did you make them? And the lamp looks also nice, and give it a vintage look. naais!

nice ride, I haven't tried the sturmey 5 speed and am quite interested in them

''relaxed geometry'' looks very nice. Add some fenders! not really feeling that lamp though.