Rat Bikes! Pub Bikes Beaters! Frankenbikes!

Cheers hugo - good tip on the Jenolite - My dad used to use that back in the days when car ownership meant rust removal and protection!

The white stays thing sounds like it will be horrible. Or do you mean leave the stays and fork sink plated.?
I was thinking of leaving forks and lugs and stays plated and just the main tubes painted - this sort of thing
http://i.ebayimg.com/t/FAUSTO-COPPI-WHITE-CHROMED-LUGS-STEEL-ROAD-FRAMESET-57-56cm-NOS-NEW-/00/s/MTIwMFgxNjAw/z/qs8AAOxyyF5RLKF2/$(KGrHqF,!pcFD9iU8NJLBRLKF2Ot8w~~60_35.JPG

I'd wonder if zinc plating might be quite heavy(?).

I was thinking of bright zinc plate (BZP) of the type you get on nuts and bolts, it's very thin (i.e. you don't even have to mask the threads) but durable. As far as I know a lot of "Chrome" BMX's are done like this or with bright Nickel. Dialled Bikes do some nice cruisers/BMXs in the yellowy zinc, which is not really to my tastes, but confirms that it's a practical solution....

If you're worried about areas of rust then it might be worth removing - say soaking in coke for 48hrs and then lightly sanding. Then you can use something like Jenolite to prevent further rusting. It will discour the steel - it sort of blackens it. But it should save the forks being damaged further.

Good point - I did "acquire" some neat phosphoric acid a little while back that was splendid for that sort of thing - left rusty metal looking a bit like the Schwinn up there.