1949 R O Harrison Restoration

Here is a lovely 1949 R O Harrison which

has just been finished for it's new owner after a complete

restoration, including recreating a full decal set.

I found the bike in the UK last year in rather a 

dilapidated but structurally sound state.

I was very taken with it's lovely fork crown, and those

No 25a Oscar Egg rear drop outs are hard to pass by... 

Upon arrival in New Zealand it was sent off to the

chrome shop for a bit of work, while this was underway

I set about recreating a decal set. I had initially intended

using one of the decal sets available in the UK, however upon

close inspection it soon became apparent that these sets were

pretty poor reproductions of the originals, wrong fonts, 

wrong spacings in fact the more one looked the more

wrong they looked compared to the couple of photos

of original unrestored bikes that I was using for 

comparison...so I set to work.

 So here are my reproductions. I guess the folk in the UK just used

a gothic font that sort of closely resembled the originals, however

during the forties a graphic designer would have most likely

hand rendered the original font, so I traced from the originals.

The one fault (well two) are that the photo I used didn't show

the r/h end of the scroll so I made that part up, which I now 

know is the wrong shape, so will fix that for next time.

And my text is maybe a touch on the heavy side.

Still I am pretty pleased nonetheless, they are a vast 

improvement on what was available, and I sure as hell wasn't

 going to get a bike sent half way around the world, completely

restore it and then use some half-assed decals.

Coming as it did with those Oscar Egg drop outs, I thought

it was the right bike to run a classic Super Champion (Osgear)

drive train on, and luckily I had a spare set ready to go.

It turned out to be a very labour intensive build, as it is with

lots of these older bikes (well components actually) I find 

that you need to spend that bit of extra time refurbishing and

 then setting them up to work as smoothly as they can.

 That being said I really enjoyed this build from beginning to end, 
the three way paint job came out really well, I mixed all the paint colours 
specifically for this job and again am pleased with the overall look.

Don't even think about the time spent masking..ouch!

  The very pretty "GB Courier" Hiduminium brakes.

Yes and even the head tube decal that is being offered in

the UK is quite inaccurate, so had to remake this as well.

 

 Harden H/F hubs with Cyclo wing nuts laced to
Weinmann concave tubular rims.

 Original NOS Tressoplast cloth bar tape with three
coats of shellac, the same cloth is used as top tube cable
ties as was often done at the time.

The Lugs had been beautifully filed finished, I should have taken 

some photos of them unpainted, extremely tidy workmanship 

over the whole bike. I thinly lined them in gold to give them

just a nice little subtle highlight. 

Although these early Super Champion derailleurs were 

made to run three speeds, many were modified to cope with four 

speed freewheels when they became available, I have set this up

to run four speeds,but will let the new owner drill that fourth hole.

These derailleurs shift remarkably well, infact they shift a little like

the Campagnolo Grand Sport, in that you over shift slightly then 

centre the shifter back, you quickly get the hang of shifting them 

very smoothly and quietly.

 Without doubt one of the most classic and purposeful looking 

racing derailleur systems ever made..

 Cobra pedals, mainstay of the NZ peloton in seems, 

well judging by the number I have seen around here

and why not, they are a very stylish and robust piece.

A nicely balanced and very usable vintage racing bicycle.
I haven't road tested this one (it's raining) but hope to get it out in the 
next couple of days ..will let you know what it goes like.

Robert Capa, Tour de France], July 1939