Nice bikes there!

Sometimes a reason to throw a bike away is that it is locked (framelock) and no key. Like this one with full Altus parts.

That SuperCourse blows me away. Nice work!

Everything can be saved. If there is a sense of saving an overdriven bike by caterpillar, that can be questioned. But of course it's much easier to start building better frame than the one that has a lot of work before you even get to the point of building it back again.

Sometimes you just have to make a decision whether to save or not to save something. And personally I see a lot more trouble to fix something for my own use than to those that are sold onward. I give guarantee for the bikes I sell on, so can't take a risk picking up a bike that is dangerous. But you have to rely on the eyeing the bike on location. There are a lot of things that can be bad in the bike what you can't see visually by just looking. I'll try to drive those bikes first myself to see they work properly.

One thing that tells something with geared bikes is that on smallest cog(s) the chain slip when pressured with hard pedaling, and it means that the frame is giving up. It is not as sturdy anymore than it was. That can't be seen just on bare eyes, except looking how worn the cogs, chain or derailleur pulleys are. But somebody might have changed them at some point.

So happened with a beautiful Peugeot. Paint job was still pristine. Did everything, changed all I could but the chain was skipping/slipping. So had to turn it to be single speed, unfortunately. And with a quite light gear ratio. When giving a lot of pressure to pedals, the chain was skipping annoyingly.

Steel frames need to be straighten slowly using time. Can't rush. Like the one here.

Are you sure the problem was in the frame itself? Every chain skip problem I have ever encountered was caused by chain elongation, cog tooth wear, freewheel float, loose crank or rear axle bearings, and/or chain/cog incompatibility.

I have BROKEN two steel frames in the driveline area -- Nishiki Competition at the bottom bracket shell's seat tube lug, Peugeot UO-8 on the drive side chainstay, but that is, of course, a total failure, rather than a general "giving up" (softening?) of the frame.

Comments/reactions from others?

The green spray paint "protected" the rear chrome stays, I just polished it after paint strip. Not perfect, but close enough. The front fork besides being incorrect, was powdercoated black, so I found a NOS chrome Rampar Tange fork on Ebay and had the top painted. It has the incorrect crown, but the bike is a rider, not a museum piece. I pieced together the headset from different Raleigh parts, and an old Bianchi bottom bearing cup with better chrome. It's done 1200 miles since rebuild.

I went all those things through, changing everything possible, with no help, even the wheels. The bike had lost it's "sturdiness". Tubes from rear fork were finished. Same thing has happened with another bike, which also was converted because of that to single speed.