At 9:29 AM -0400 7/17/08, Dr. Paul Williams wrote:
>George,
>
>I agree wholeheartedly. As a former archaeologist of over 20 years
>(and married to a former archaeological conservator) I have seen my
>share of bags of iron artefacts which were kept - because they were
>deemed to be part of the site archive - end up as nothing more than
>piles of rust "dust"!
>
>Patina is one thing, but active corrosion is another - often that
>nice verdigris on Cu-alloy objects hides more destructive issues. We
>find ourselves in a situation, which was discussed at length fairly
>recently, of whether a bike is to be simply hung on the wall or is
>to be ridden. Either way, corrosion is not a good thing and left
>unchecked can turn a valuable keepsake into a fragile and unstable
>mess. But, it goes without saying that this becomes an even greater
>issue when it comes to a "rider"!
I think the first question is whether you can repair the damage without destroying the artefact. On this Rene Herse
http://www.vintagebicyclepress.com/
the chrome is so rusty that really nothing is left. What you see is bare steel, unprotected from the elements. The paint has little rust marks, and has faded. The gold lettering and lining has oxidized and now is almost olive green.
This bike is not as it left the Herse shop in 1952 - back then it was shiny, with new chrome. You could argue that it no longer represents Herse's vision. On the other hand, you can still see what the vision was, and how it looked originally.
However, a rechrome would require a repaint. And new lettering and lining. And new Reynolds stickers (which you'd have to make, as the correct ones are not available currently).
I would argue that restored, this bike might be closer to Herse's original vision, but retain far less information about how Herse bikes looked in 1952. And in my opinion, the historic information trumps the "show appeal".
Instead of restoring the bike, the owner scraped off the loose rust with steel wool, waxed the entire frame, and now rides the bike only when it does not rain. During the past 8 years, the condition of the bike has not changed, so it appears to be fine.
If, at a later stage, we figure out how to replicate the old paints exactly, and feel that originality is not worth much, the owner can rechrome and repaint.
This Herse tandem
http://www.vintagebicyclepress.com/
had to be redone. The original chrome was completely rusty, and had been overpainted with silver spray cans. The bike was too pitted to rechrome, so it was painted instead. Even though we tried our best when restoring it in 2003, and spent considerable sums of money, the result does not look like a real Rene Herse. The paint is too thick, the lining was applied with a roller instead of a brush, the lining pattern is incorrect for a 1946 Herse (we thought it was a 1947 bike when we restored it, copied a 1948 one, as we could not find an original earlier one)...
This original tandem
http://reneherse.com/
shows what we were trying to achieve. The difference may be hard to see in the photos, but if you put the bikes side-by-side, it is very noticeable.
During the restoration of the tandem, a perforation of one of the triangulation tubes was overlooked, acids seeped in during the stripping of the chrome, and bubbled up a few years later, so we'll get to redo it after replacing the tube. We'll try better this time, with thinner paint, correct lining and hopefully will come up with something more convincing.
Jan Heine
Editor
Bicycle Quarterly
140 Lakeside Ave #C
Seattle WA 98122
http://www.bikequarterly.com