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looking for a cheap steel frame (forks if u have them but not a problem if not)
not bothered about paint work just want it to be straight

£50 posted unless in or around Coventry then ill pay cash on collect

Hiho

I've a Sun 70-80-90's steel frame 21 1/2" c to top, C/w headset, front forks and cottered bottom bracket. Tired blue paint. Appears sound, no dings. Anyone you know who can pick it up from near M25 J13 (much hassle posting)?

I want an old Campag 28 hole small flange front hub. I'll be happy with the shell without the axle or quick release skewer. Not fussed between the Record or Tipo model as long as S/F and 28 hole. I can offer cash, or swap for same in 32 or 36 hole, or Record large flange in 28, 32 or 36 drillings . Any one got one?

Okay fella I'll offer you twelve pounds for the 42Tooth as shown in foto. Any good?

Hiho fella. A few points. If your frame has 120 mm spacing, then the dimension you should be concentrating on is the 'OLN' = over lock nut dimension. The axle length, which I reckon are the '170mm, 163mm and 148mm' is secondary to the hub fitting between the fork ends. The OLN of 117mm has a 163 mm long axle (according to the SJS website). I reckon 117 would be fine in a 120 frame.
I commute on a drop bar thin tyred machine with a three speed hub and I reckon they are the best. As I use a large chainring and large rear sprocket, connected via a 1/8" chain, the transmission is ridiculously reliable and long lived. For hard core city commuting I can pretty well outstrip any other machine. Fixed wheel is lovely but crap for getting through bad traffic filled roads. I would never ride fixed in town. But I've never seen another racer on 3 speed.
The s-rf3 is the latest version of the good ol' fashioned AW series, which has been going for decades. I use the AW, but old ones cut from mundane roadster bikes. Unless the old machine has been submerged or really badly abused, the old 3 speed is usually well good enough to rebuild without any need for major servicing. This latest version seems to have an aluminium shell, which is a rare thing in old SA gears. The more usual old steel shell is normally slightly oily on old bikes, so the chrome is good. The main neg though (apart from being 4oz heavier) is that the steel flanges are thinner than aluminium ones, so you need to stack washers under the spoke heads so that they don't break.
So unless you are keen to shell out £90 odd for a bright new shiny hub, just look around for any abandoned old sit up and beg bike with a 3 speed hub and get the rear wheel. If you are unlucky it'll be a 40 spoke, which can be a pain as these rims are rare (but gettable: go for Rigida Sputniks). But any 1970's onwards will be 36 spoke.

I've been running an 1/8" chain with a 21tooth 1/8" rear sprocket and a 3/32" TA 52 tooth alloy ring for some years, and I replaced the chain yesterday. I reckon about 30,000 miles from that old chain. Can't complain about that really, as I think it was lightly used when Ioriginally fitted it. Never any jumping off probllem, just spend some time making sure the chain is running straight.

Claud Butler 'electron' model: went from mid 70's to 80's I think. Unicrown front forks fitted: stronger than originals and with brazed on brake mounts. Rest of frame in green. Straight handlebars, not in chrome finish but back. I'll look into why you can't see the pics on Flickr.

for sale: 21" Claud Butler fixie. 1980's steel frame, upgraded chrome front forks with cantilever brake. Staight black bars, alloy large flange 700C wheels with new 700 x 28 tyres. Alloy chainset, 46 x 18 gearing. Whole machine runs well. Pictures on Flickr under 'shortclaud' name. West London/Surrey borders £75.

I ride exclusively steel 'cos they go on forever. The old 1950's ones I so like have been handmade by craftman all those years ago, and having survived over half a century don't generally drop in two bits. Whilst the carbon is undoubtly lighter, I reckon its kinda souless, factory built and fragile.

Dunno if makes a difference in your corner of cycling, but my bit, which is tandems, I've found that those single butted Sapims are the best spokes available. Everything else breaks. And I've converted any hub to any number of spoke holes by bolting on an auxillary flange with the desired number of holes, after turning a close fitting inner location that clips over the existing flange then using four x M4 bolts. Good fun making the new flanges.

You are using the 'valve on last' technique are you? This is where you fit the second bead working towards the valve, periodicaly resettling the bead already fitted in the centre of the rim, so releasing that oh-so-vital extra amount of unfitted bead so that the final click is right by the valve. And don't be shy about pushing the valve into the body of the tyre, otherwise it tends to lock the yet to be fitted bead out. And also to keep a small amount of air in the tube, so that it doesn't get pinched.

Lae

Any joy? I'm resonably sure I've a set of s/f Campags in 36/36 laying around (somewhere), so maybe this swap can happen.

did you get the 26" wheel of your dreams?

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Interesting selection of 'hetchins' on ebay at moment. Apart from the one discussed above, the other two are interesting for all the wrong reasons. The 1936 frame is only slightly better than a collection of rust held together by paint: it'll need many hundreds of pounds worth of repair work, and after what the poor thing has suffered I would never feel safe on it. It nonetheless seems to be attracting bids of hundreds of pounds with 5 days to go. At least the vendor isn't making light of its negs. Which is more than can be said than the other frame. Am I alone in having the very gravest concerns about this thing? I fear not only that its a fake, but its just plain dangerous. Why a fake? The most obvious is that the curve of the rear stays is wrong, especially the chain stays. Then there is the fact that I've never seen/heard of a Hetchins being built with Nervex lugs. And other details such as on a 'real' curly, the little cable guide that takes the rear mech wire around the bottom bracket is always under the bb. (This is 'cos the vibrant chain stays curve up, compared to straight stays, so a wire ontop would foul the tube). And I think its dangerous 'cos the work done in 'converting' this unfortunate frame to try and look like something it is not, I reckon would of wrecked the rear triangle completely. I would expect it to fail on its first ride. A death trap. And people are bidding for this.
So from this, I fear that unless you get lucky, you'll be doing well to get a reasonable Curly at a reasonable price. Whilst they are nice bits of kit, they ain't an order of magnitude better than other class lightweights of the time. I can assure you that having bends in your rear frame tubes doesn't in any way improve the ride. Yes, they are distinctive, and nicely made, but I don't consider the premium they currently attract to be justified. So in your shoes, I'd go for a class conventional machine such as Rotrax or Ephgrave or Condor or any other of the numerous similar 1950's frames, and wait for sanity to return to the market.

Might amuse my variation on this theme...

I raced a closed circuit 20 km time trial a couple of months ago. It was the tricycle world championships at Blenheim palace. Only being partly mad, I don't ride trike much: this must have been perhaps my 4th open race ever. No time to reccy the course, so lap one, took it easy. This is all in the absolute tipping rain, on poorly surfaced hilly perimeter road (3 laps in total). After pass start point to start second lap, me thought I knew the course, so began pushing to my limit. On a reasonably long left curving downhill swoop, I find me banked to my limit, hanging over the left side of the trike, watching my machine gently move from the oh-so-desirable left side of the road (where the camber is, in effect banked in my favour) to the right side. I had that moment of the title when I knew all was lost: me and my trike weren’t going to stay on the road. So off at a tangent I went, onto the rough ground for maybe 5 or 10 seconds, braking as hard as I could. But, as I said t'was raining a bit, so no retardation manifested itself at all, be it tyre skidding or brake block insufficiency. I could see the marshal I was heading towards at perhaps 20-25mph, scamper out the way, leaving me to admire the wooden fence behind him. I knew it was going to hurt. And it did. A theatrical/cartoon style flash and bang, and I slid down the aforementioned fence. I do the standard checklist to register damage: blood in mouth, right arm movable, neck movable, fair bit of blood around (being thoughtfully washed away by the rain), otherwise just scratches. I notice I'm still wanting to race, so twist the trike straight, ask the marshal if he'd push me back onto the course (in top gear: couldn't turn cranks on rough ground) and away I dripped. Finished in 7th place. No broken bones, about two weeks to get over the results of my unconventional stopping technique.
Great fun trikes. Their’s just something about them.

In case anyone cares, my understanding of the idea behind the Diadrant front forks was that having two bends in the blades instead of the single curve that every other conventional bike has was as follows: the soaking up shocks ability of front forks happens not on the straight bit, but at the bend. So having two bends means twice the soaking up. Not convinced myself, as I've not noticed any difference. But hasn't stopped me liking Bates. I'm of the view, as expressed above, that it showed the frame maker without having to write the name. I've seen two other frames of this pattern: all three share identical lugwork and the same Chaler track ends, so yes, the ones in the fotos are original.