The Art of the Sympathetic Restoration, Part 1/a The Frame Set.

Here is a simple run down of how I go about cleaning, rust removing and preserving the surviving paint work and decals on a rough pre war bike frame set, now keep in mind this is just the way I do it, and it works for me, many others will have different methods which could well be better than mine, but I am pretty happy with the results I get. 

The forks in their 'natural' aged state, after a soapy clean.

First up I clean the fame with soapy water, which is a bit of a waste of time really, except it does one great thing...when it is wet, it gives you a brief but inspiring approximate idea of what the frame might look like when finished, then when it quickly dries and looks like crap again, you are left with the task of just rolling up your sleeves and getting that same look to stay permanent, mainly through some pretty dirty, sometimes tedious but ultimately extremely rewarding work.

I then degrease the frame with spray on degreaser, getting into the corners with old stiff toothbrushes, I also find an old small but blunted screwdriver with your rag covering the tip comes in handy during this operation around the lugs etc, obviously being very careful not to damage the paint finish.

A bit of acid action...
 

After the frame is thoroughly cleaned, I then use a phosphoric acid cleaner on the exposed rust, getting into the surface rust with 000 wire wool at the same time...wear rubber gloves of course. If the rust is quite heavy and scaly, I might use a coarser wire wool, but am always being very careful to not further damage remaining paint or bright work.

Once I am happy with the 'finish' on the areas of surface rust, I apply a rust neutralizer only to those area's with a small brush. Many of these products will leave a semi-gloss black finish, which is not a bad thing in some cases, but not always. 

Depending on the area of rust and the finish I am looking for, I sometimes clean off the neutralizer before it has completely hardened off, as some fully hardened neutralizers do have quite a particular 'look' to them, and by removing it before it has fully hardened it looks (ironically enough) a little more neutral.

Rust neutralizer carefully applied to treated surface rust areas only.

 

After neutralizing the rusted areas I then cut the entire frame using an automotive cutting paste..now it is extremely important to take care during this stage as one over zealous rubbing motion could remove a bit of pin stripe or bit of decal colour..maybe start out using something less aggressive just to be safe.

 

Cutting paste sparingly and carefully used

Next up is the pay off, the polishing stage...I use Brazilian Carnauba car wax, and lots of it.

Forks up on the stand being polished and buffed at least two or three times.

 

  The forks finished and looking pretty nice.

 

So there you have it, well as far as restoring the frame/forks go anyway, doing the components is another process which I will go into next, then you will see the complete finished bike, which came up not to bad if  may say so myself.