At 11:09 AM +0000 7/18/08, alex m wrote:
>Beautiful bike, Kevin...
>
>I would go along with Jan here, full dismantle, soft wire wool, and wax.
Don't dismantle! There are lots of things that will go wrong when you pull it apart. If it's a wall hanger, don't take anything apart. If you want to ride, just carefully open the bearings and overhaul. Those do come apart with few problems.
If the bike is at all your size, I would make it functional. The old wheels probably are fine to ride occasionally. Even if the spokes have rusted from 1.8 mm diameter to 1.7 mm diameter, they will hold your weight. If the bike rides as well as it looks, you will get twice the enjoyment out of it if you ride it 2-3 times a year early Sunday morning with no traffic.
If you make it functional (and thus open headset and BB), I would treat it with FrameSaver.
Avoid polishing anything with abrasives.
Brass wool only gets rid of corrosion. It's softer than steel and does not polish. You will be left with dark metal underneath, which does need protection, hence the wax. A toothbrush dipped in a good car wax is a perfect tool to clean and conserve paint, chrome and everything else.
On a racing bike, you are lucky not to have much plastic, which usually has deteriorated beyond salvation, and is hard to preserve.
>Conservation work on a bike can actually take a lot longer than restoration
>... (I know of a high wheeler that was repainted at some point red blue and
> white like the French flag, it was probably ridden on Bastille day or some
>thing in a parade. Under the red blue and white the original black with gol
>d lining is still mostly there. Cutting/chipping back the modern paint inch
> by inch with a very sharp cutter knife will reveal the original finish, bu
>t what a job....)
I would say a good day on the Gloria should do most of what I would do to it. Here is a Reyhand that was treated similarly:
http://www.vintagebicyclepress.com/
In this case, the paint had been covered with something (motor oil?)
that prevented rust, but it did discolor the light paint. The
discoloration was too deep to polish out, so it was left as is, just
waxed. The toothbrush/wax method still got rid of a lot of dirt, and
the bike's original color came back out.
>
>The alloy parts shouldn't be wire brushed of course. On a polishing mop the
>y will come up to a bright shine that will look slightly out of keeping wit
>h the rest of bike, but the shine dulls down fairly rapidly on alloy. There
> again if time is of no object you can reach an intermediary state by hand
>with a cloth and alloy polish paste.
The toothbrush/wax method again cleans, but doesn't polish, so you get a very soft shine. It's perfect for aluminum parts. The first-generation Mavic hubs on the Reyhand were dark brown with dust and dirt. Now they are not perfect, but very nice.
Jan Heine
Editor
Bicycle Quarterly
140 Lakeside Ave #C
Seattle WA 98122
http://www.bikequarterly.com