1930's raleigh build

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