Fuquay Yank Bank

Ok so a fellow cyclist from my club has given me a rather tired frame he had built by Fuquay. He's a tall gent so the frame is pretty large- i havent measured it but it looks like a 58cm with a 60cm seat tube. Not quite as rad as some of his later frames which had monostay rear ends, this has fastback stays instead. Probably built from a mixture of tubes from Ritchey/Tange/columbus and Tig welded.

According to various sites the man was Serotta trained and only lived in England a short while before returning to a job in aerospace in the US. He's relatively unknown as a framebuilder and probably only knocked out a couple of hundred in all at a guess. He seems to have specialised in MTBs where his frames were generally well regarded.

Ok so its looking a bit of a rough dog right now and theres a fair amount of rust there from turbo training sweat.
Pic of how it came to me with a pair of wheels added. Excuse the messy end of my garage.

update.

I had to wrestle out the seatpost and stem,melt the BB out with caustic soda, fill a couple of dents.. but heres where i'm up to.

The bike had a mish mash of campagnolo/shimano groupset before. I think my plans are to fit Shimano 105 5500/5600 in black as i already have the mechs and brakes. Might have to post a wanted ad for the chainset.

Stem/bars - undecided but probably black quill and ergo bar.

Did you strip and polish the frame or is that paint?

slightly OT, but I'm curious as to the pronunciation of the brand:

1. foo-key
   
2. fuck-ay
   
3. foo-kay
   
4. none of the above
   

Far-kwa

I'd love to know how you went from that red bike to that silver bike. Looks like two different machines.

its quite extreme as a transformation but i assure you its the same frame. It was shot blasted and then powdercoated in a faux chrome before laquer. Its not a bad shine, not as mirror like as real chrome but i quite like it that way. The main issue with powdercoating is the finish will never be as good as paint (.. thats applied well). It works best on frames with less detail and you have to be prepared to ream/tap everything afterwards.

Ok so the frame had an accident...i have too many bikes and i take it in turns to give them an outing however i rode this bike out in the rain a few times and then put it away for a fair while. Eventually i went to adjust the seatpost and found it totally stuck , i tried to saw down through it but low end Ritchey posts are very thick and even 3 or 4 deep cuts wasnt allowing it to collapse inward to aid removal. The struggle continued for what felt like weeks and every genius idea failed. I really didnt want to resort to caustic soda so gave it another go in the vice, but using the frame as leverage broke the seat tube :( it didnt sheer clean through but it creased and possibly partially broke under the powdercoat.

so..

The next installment involves the cutting out of the tube and repairing the frame with an integrated post, ive always fancied one of the early bonded Look frames or an Allez comp/vitus/giant etc so i suppose i wanted to see if i could do something along those lines.

So this is just trying out a pre made carbon tube, its not bonded in or anything at this stage, im aware its best to use some fiberglass medium in between the metal and carbon to avoid the bond breaking down. It is also too thin and would need reinforcement. Gives you an idea..

Things to consider are which adhesive would be best.

I assume that if it sets too hard it may be brittle?

Yes! Excited for this.

Very cool base frame, super cool adaptation

this is excellent!
would bonding the BB end and using the seatpost clamp at the top be enough to keep it secure?

it has been bonded now at both points. I have laminated the tube so it has a step that butts up against the steel at each end, like double butted tubing but externally - it has more of a vase shape now than a straight tube. I have topped it with a slightly more cosmetic UD carbon layer. I bonded in a couple of inches of 25mm seatpost in the top of my integrated post to provide the clamping area. The section of steel tube i removed weighed 291g. I replaced it with material weighing 100g ish so its considerably lighter. This was no thoroughbred frame to begin with but it now weighs 1967g in a 60cm size which is pretty decent considering i dont need to add a seatpost.

Post-repair pic?

coming soon, wasnt totally happy with some of the work i did so lots of sanding and re-doing stuff.

having a bit of a mare with the paint, tried a few faux chrome paints..all of which were awful and im making things worse. I think i may have to do something like this to save it.

I think part of the issue is my lockup is freezing cold, im struggling to stay there for more than a couple of hours at a time with a tiny radiator and rushing things and making silly mistakes. My masking tape decided to not peel off the frame so that made a huge load of work getting it de gunked etc

Your paint won't be going off well at all in temperatures that low either. Probably best to shelve notions of paint until warmer weather to be honest...

heres how its coming along

After some time gathering dust i have rebuilt the bike albeit with very beater parts - downtube shifters and a mix of old and fairly knackered ultegra parts but first i'll share the saddle mod. So far about 500 miles ridden and the bike feels great.

Take your worst flite, rip off the cover and skin it to look somewhat like the rare carbon version i have always fancied..