Hi Charles:
When the rust/ "originality" ratio reaches a certain low point it's time to call your painter-otherwise the "originality" factor will fall quite low. Incidently, when does "originality" disappear? Allowing a bike to deteriorate is simply an example of poor stewardship-especially reprehensible if the bike is an important one.
Furthermore, I doubt whether anyone really loves rust, otherwise they wouldn't invent euphemisms such as "patina" to describe it.
As is usual in such matters, I suspect the truth behind the bike repair issue are financial considerations not aesthetic ones.
When viewed through the lens of repair costs rust begins to look like patina, however, the problem becomes in getting others to buy into the delusion. It's the cycle collectors' version of the Emperor's New Clothes.
Regards,
George
George Hollenberg MD
> Dr. George wrote, followed by Kurt Sperry:
>
> > You carefully sidestep the question regarding what
> "information" would
> be lost by a proper repair. I submit that no "information" would
> be lost
> and the integrity of what remains would be preserved. If
> necessary,
> various photographic, chemical, and even X-Ray techniques could
> be used
> to document the bike before commencing repairs.
>
> What would be lost is the bike's originality- it's very essence
> as a
> historical object. Repainting a 60 or so year old bike with hand
> pinstriping using the paints and techniques available today can
> at the
> very best only reproduce a hollow facsimile of the original surface.
> Even if the painter gets the color exactly right, catalyzed
> epoxy will
> never look convincingly right and the modern pinstriping however
> artistic will never be more than a pale replication. Is it
> really a
> "proper repair" if the object's originality is irreversibly lost?
>
> ***************
>
> And the BINGO! goes to Kurt Sperry, who has it exactly right.
> Repaint
> and rechrome that Herse, even in the most careful, expensive
> way, and it
> will not ever be as sheerly interesting as it is right now. not
> ever
> again. Now. If I could send it back to 1955, and have Herse
> himself
> supervise a full restoration, I'd consider that.
>
> But, since that's a fantasy, we're left with the possible.
>
> George, I guarantee you that if you were to have Peter Weigle
> himself
> restore that bike (and this is no slam to Peter), or Baylis, the
> result
> would be very, very nice, as good as you can get, but, it would
> not be
> what it is now. And if, as I do, one happens to LIKE the way it
> is now,
> in preference to anything else, then restoring it would just
> degrade it.
>
> There is no way to find an "objective" method of discussing
> this.
> Either you like it the way it is, or you like it some other way.
>
> Period. Totally subjective. I like it the way it is, and since
> originality is, in my mind, always to be preferred, preserving
> what's
> left of that originality is a no-brainer.
>
> These problems exist on a continuum though. A friend of mine
> who shall
> remain nameless, likes his original bikes, and rides them, even
> though
> they look like they spent the last 10 years at the bottom of the
> Marianas trench, and then were lightly scraped off. I'm
> exaggerating,
> but only a little. He likes them that way. I can't argue with
> it, but
> I can say I'd repaint the bikes he'd never touch. And, of
> course, there
> are people who would restore that Herse, but I'd never touch it.
>
> It is interesting to consider the possibility of a carefully
> aged
> repaint. CyclArt does this really well at their best. Their
> Velotique
> job. I've had a couple done, and was very satisfied with the
> results...
> likely I wouldn't do it again though, because, no matter how
> close you
> get to original, even to the point of fooling the emotional
> brain...you
> still know it's not real. Not original. And, anymore, that's
> all it
> takes for me.
>
> As a side-note, I will point out the auction I have on ebay for
> that
> Condor Pathracer. Note the pin-striping on that bike. You
> simply
> cannot get that kind of work anymore. Even if you could find
> someone to
> do it, and you were willing to pay for it (I'm sure some
> specialty
> automotive painters have stripers who could do that job and a
> lot more),
> the style would still not be the same. It just wouldn't. Those
> stripes
> were applied very quickly, by people who were doing it over and
> over
> every day. Those people, and that style, just don't exist
> anymore. So,
> such things are worth preserving even when they're very, very faded..
>
> As for whether it's somehow "wrong" not to repaint bikes with a
> lot of
> wear--as in, "the maker would never have approved of leaving the
> bike
> that way" all I can say is that the maker doesn't own the bike.
> I do.
>
> Charles Andrews
> Los Angeles
>
> "Somebody has to be tireless...
> or the fast buck operators would
> asphalt the entire coast, fill every
> bay and slay every living thing
> incapable of carrying a wallet."
>
> --John D. MacDonald
>
>
> _______________________________________________
>
George Hollenberg MD
CT, USA