Thursday, June 18, 2020

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