Chombi

I did not remove the anodizing on the DA cranks, just a lot of elbow grease and some mild polish afterwards.. I'm sure I did not breach the anodizing as I did not see any black Al oxide on my polishing rags when I did it. I guess I'm lucky that the cranks were not thrashed by the original owner. There are a few scrathes on it though if you look at it in person really close, but cleaning up the scratches makes them pretty much dissapear from a couple of feet away. The drilled rings took ages to clean as I had to hit every drilled hole hard with a brush and solvent to get it to look like it does now.
Regarding the rims, Yes, I might be interested in a used set of 36H 700C rims, as long as they do not show too much mileage on the on the braking surfaces and the scratches and oxidiation is very minimal on hem and hopefully can be mostly cleaned or polished off. I'm trying to go with period correct, 70's era rims, so Super Champions would certainly work, same with Fiammes and Nisi in silver, of course. I actually found a set of English NOS Birmalux tub rims at eBay a few weeks ago that I was considering, but Dang!, I waited too long and they are gone!
Those would have worked out good for the project too!

Chombi

repechage

In a tangent, Richard Sachs was selling a set of Exxon/Graphtek lugs recently, they may still be live.
The question is what was HE doing with a set?

Chombi

Yes, I saw that set for sale. I suspect that there was a sort of fire sale when Exxon closed down production on the bike so some guys got these for cheap. There's been a couple of Graftek lugsets for sale recently....what one might do with them, espcially as most do not have access to the right CF tubing, I can't imagine.....Unless one is trying to fix a broken Graftek with them, they might be only good for putting on a shelf and displaying......

Chombi

gaucho777 

Thanks for the info. Yeah, I saw those Birmalux rims, too, and considered them for my Ron Kit/Speedwell project. That UK flag sticker would have been a nice touch, but I already have too many rims. Plus, the seller was pb*bikes, so I assumed they were over-priced. I'll check on what I have in terms of 36H tubular rims and send you a PM tonight (may just have 32Hs).

exxongraftek

Hey Chombi, thanks for sending the photos! Maybe my poor "nekkid" girl will have some beautiful "clothes" soon. Another thing you might want to check out is velobase dot com, they have a directory of many of the frames you & I seem interested in, and if you search for Graftek out there you'll see one of my later girls, along with my Teledyne Titan and a few more pics I shared out there. I put the majority of the info from Larry Blake out there as well (and I think I've shared all that with you already, I hope...). Just so you know, I'm in the process of downsizing my collection a bit, depending on the condition you need I may have an extra set of Campy 1037/A pedals available soon. Let me know if you still need some & what you'd like to give for them, and I'll shoot you some pics. You deserve a great deal!

exxongraftek

Also may have a set of period correct tubular rims, too...just remembered.

exxongraftek

Regarding those Graftek lugs for sale (the cheap ones, not the overpriced set) I saw a guy do a frame out of bamboo and it might be a cool project - the "Bootek"?

Chombi

After searching for an early version (with oval "Cinelli/Milano" stamp extension neck) Cinelli 1A with a longer, correct for me 110mm extension length for almost a year, I finally found one that's pretty much NOS from a Spanish seller at eBay a few weeks ago for less than 50 bucks!......I was not as successful with my search for a replacement old version (with Cinelli crests)Cinelli Campione Del Mondo bars to replace the badly scarred one that came with the bike. Everything I found for auction or for sale was just crazy expensive or beat up even worse than my bar ....so I decided to just polish up the original last night...yes,........ X-mas night making beautiful sounding power tool noises in my garage!...
Here's the result!





Yah...I also sanded and polished up the rest of the bar that's not seen under the handlebar tape, but I just don't want to know that all that zigzag gouges and scratches are under there!
Now that new stem's gonna stay there permanently as polishing a tube with all those bends on it was not easy!!

Next on the polishing bench would be the 1st gen DA bake levers! Maybe I'll hit them with the polishing wheel on New Year's eve??....

Chombi

JPZ66

Looking sweet !

Also, how about starting another OT thread with your model car collection ? I'm a scale modeller from way back myself.....would like to see more of those beautiful cars you have...especially the "Birdcage".


Joe

Chombi

Thank you Joe!
I'll see what I can do for an OT model car related thread. I'm wating for my latest model acquisition to come in maybe at the end of the week. I'll wait till then so I can include it in the pics....

Chombi

JPZ66

Awesome. I have some die cast in my collection of cars, but back in the day I used to do a lot of resin bodies and pewter detail castings for some of the "cottage industry" kit makers.

Anyhow, getting back on topic......when will these freshly polished parts join the frame ? It's coming together beautifully for sure.

Joe

ftwelder

Fantastic bike! Phil parts turn up all over the place. I found a Phil BB between Gipiemme Crono special arms in my Battaglin.

Can I see the top of the seat post?

sykerocker 

Appears to be a Ural.

Chombi

Got a few major milestones done over the holidays.....



It's finally looking like a complete bike.
Rebuilt the wheelset with more period correct Fiamme Ergal rims to replace the Modern MA 40's that came with the bike when I bought it. It was an interesting/challenging build as the as the Fiammes so much less stiffer than other rims I had built up, so it needs a lighter touch to true and tension the wheels. Reminds me very much of the GEL280 rims I built up to a wheelset a year and a half ago. You can really mess up these very light rims if you are ham fisted about your wheel build. I had a polished up Fiamme Ergal; rim set I bought recently form a forum member to start the build with, but it turned out that one of the rims had a bad lateral blip that I cannot true out of it (I think I can fix the bad rim eventually with some careful use of my small C-clamps and my work table for another future wheelset build.). So I went to plan B and harvested my second set of Fiammes from a wheelset I also bought recently from another forum member that had rust issues with its spokes that turned out I could not get around/fix and thankfully the rims built up nicely with the original Phil Wood hubs and spokes to maybe the best wheeset I have built so far in terms of how nicely it tensioned and trued up quickly for me.
Also finished up the handlebar, stem and brake levers. Went black cloth tape to keep things simple and match the black lever hoods and saddle.
In the interest of getting the build to move forward, I decided to forgo restoring and using the original 1st gen Shimano DA levers as I never really liked the way they looked, plus getting new hoods for them will cost too much money for levers I'm not really happy with. Looked into NR levers to match the NR calipers on the bike, but Dang!, they just cost way too much these days for anything in decent shape....so I went ahead and just installed the nice Dia Compe Grand Compe perforated levers I had in my stash, so they will do for now till I find a good buy for a more proper NR lever set.
My recently set of Veloflex Criterium tires is going on this bike. I cannot wait to try out these supposedly very nice riding tires on this bike!
Only things left to do to get the bike finally rolling on the road are:
Get brake pads for the NR calipers
Glue the tires on
Do final adjustments on the headset
Adjust the brakes
I'm also looking at putting a more proper leather saddle on the bike to replace the not period correct Selle Italia Daytona saddle that is doing its best to imitate a leather saddle. I would really like to put a Ti railed Brooks Swift on this bike to finish it off. Problem is to find (new) one that is affordable......

Chombi

non-fixie 

Very pretty!

Ed in Toronto

That is one sweet ride!

Cache

You know you're driving the value up of these historic classics with every post. Looking forward to the ride report.

jyl

That turned out wonderfully!

How much does it weigh? Did you happen to weigh the bare frameset?

poprad

Gorgeous build Chombi, and nicely done thread. It was very nice to learn about this rare brand through your efforts, thanks.

99Klein 

Beautiful bike and interesting thread!

Chombi

Never got to weigh the frame when it was bare,....but there are a couple of big decals decals on the bike saying "1.9kg" (proclaiming frame weight?? But that might be for the smallest frame they made.....) on them. They can be seen in the pics on the head tube and seat tube of the bike....
I'll weigh the finished bike soon after I get brake blocks installed on the calipers and I cut off all the excess cabling on the brake and derailleur systems. From what I feel rolling the bike around so far, it could be around 20 pounds or just a little less like maybe my PSV which is at 19.25 pounds. I'm also curious to find out how much the bike will weigh with a TI railed Brooks Swift on it when I eventually find/get the saddle....Problem right now is the depleted build budget that I will need to build up again to get that saddle......

Chombi

ozneddy

Outstanding !

RFC

Wonderful! I always find your collecting focus and builds to be very interesting.

toytech

Outstanding as always!

jyl

1900 g would be nicely light if that is frame + fork. 800 g or more less than a 531 frame + fork. Should be lighter than the PSV too.

I think the thing that makes your builds so nice is how carefully the components are selected. The ALAN Carbonio is a great example of this IMO, and the Medici is shaping up to be another. The tout Francais PSV build as well. This Lineseeker build shows that care as well. Here the components are faultless while letting the frame be the star.