After cleaning the BB set and finding it in perfect shape, I greased it all up and put the bearings in place. Then I turned to the BB shell. Thus began the weird...
I noticed while brushing out the 50 years of accumulated detritus that there seems to be something in the chainstays...I shined a light in and saw them packed with a fibrous substance. I used pliers to pull out what turned out to be cotton fiber, covered in rust dust and filth...and stankness. Gross, although dry to the touch it seemed to have held moisture against the inner surface of the stays and caused plenty of surface rust.
Then I turned to the down tube which also had about three inches of the nasty stuff packed in there. Lastly the seat tube....the horror! That was packed top to bottom and demanded almost 45 mins of cleaning with a coathanger then flushing w WD 40 to remove all the gack.
This was the pile of what came out of this poor frame:
That was the third pile during the operation, so there was a metric asston of fiber in there.
In the end it went back together great, it feels like butter now with cranks that turn as if being turned by the hand of an angel. But my question to all of you is...what the ever-lovin' ...I mean.... in the name of Sheldon Brown who and why would anyone do such a thing? I don't know if the builder did it, or a well-meaning wrench at some point, but jeez...
What say the group? Anyone ever encounter this on a bike before?