Rain today, no ride, but I did get started on the 51 Rudge. This bike is in very good condition except for some strange reason, the front mudguard took a beating. I figured I'd get started there. There was no way to save the back inch. Too much was gone. The next 3 inches was rusted very thin with some pinholes. I cleaned out the loose rust on the underside with a wire wheel, trimmed off the broken away area and reinforced the thin steel with JB Weld. I'll let that harden for a couple of days and get to work smoothing down the rust on the primary surface. Then, I'll give the underside a fresh coat of black. Then, the tricky part. I'll start filling the pitted area of the bare steel primary surface with black enamel and sanding until I level out the surface somewhat. I won't level it out completely because I want it to have a bit of a distressed look. Then I'll paint on a finish coat and try to blend it in with the rest of the mudguard. Try being the operative word here. We'll see.
