You may remember having seen this before in gugie's Good Day to Save Some Frames thread. I also posted pics of my test build in the Show Us Your Stella thread. Then, after Mssr. Gugie added some water bottle bosses, I sent it off to Jeffrey Bock Custom Cycles to be painted. Today, the rejuvenated frame arrived back on my doorstep, and I must say Mr. Bock completely outdid himself. I couldn't be happier!











I can't wait to build this beauty up and get her on the road!

Damn, Mssr. Bock did a great job getting that decal around the bottle boss! Fantastic!

Isn't he coming out for the Aug 18 Last Waltz at Velocult?

Absolutely "Stellar", fantastic and Mr. Bock does great work all the way around and he will be here next week.

I believe so. I met him at the OHBS last year, which is how I came to select him for this job. One of his bike's one the people's choice award (a 650B rando bike, no less). I guess someone had talked him into coming back this year to "defend his title" before the official show was canceled, but he told me he was planning to be at the VC thing.

And I can't wait to tell it. You know the ride will be extra ethereal now that it has its French Columbus decals back.

Really great job! +1

We sold a few Stellas in the mid 70's. The workmanship was exceptional for French production bikes. I always liked those top of the line SX-76 Columbus framed all Campy bikes. They were pretty rare.

The chrome on those Stellas went south fast. That's why I passed on a few of those frames.

A friend picked up this Stella SX-76 frame for a Bastille Day ride in 2011. Someone had covered the rusted lugs with silver paint. His frame had Campy vertical dropouts. I never understood why Stella used Columbus tubing which was uncommon for French bikes rather than Reynolds 531.



verktyg

Beautiful frame Andy. I would like to understand why French bikes were especially prone to RD hanger-ectomy.

There are some nicks and divots in the chrome on this one, possibly a sign of past rust removal, but it's generally really good -- especially for a ~45 year old bike.

As for the rarity, I believe it. I hadn't seen one other than this (which had been hanging in gugie's workshop for a while). I found pictures of a few as I was trying to learn something about this, but just a few. Then the day I was sending it off to be painted, I was at River City Bicycles buying fenders for another bike and while I was admiring the nice collection of bikes they've got hanging from the ceiling, I spotted one exactly like this in pristine condition. The sign claimed it was a 1970 with first generation Super Record components (though that would be from 1974, right?).

Was there anything that differentiated them from year to year? I read somewhere that some Stellas had the year of manufacture stamped on the inside of the rear derailleur hanger, but since some previous owner had cut the hanger off this one that isn't much help.

Huh?

Andy_K 's frame has standard Campy 1010 dropouts.

[MENTION=111144]Andy_K[/MENTION] wrote: "Was there anything that differentiated them from year to year? I read somewhere that some Stellas had the year of manufacture stamped on the inside of the rear derailleur hanger, but since some previous owner had cut the hanger off this one that isn't much help."

Was the "drewed" hanger on the dropout replaced?

If you look at the short chain stays on my friend's Stella it was probably built as a close coupled criterium frame??? The dropouts were chrome plated so original too.



The French used vertical dropouts on a lot of specialty frames. Simplex and Huret made vertical dropouts as well as Campy.

Campagnolo 1060 dropouts



Simplex vertical dropouts



Huret stamped steel vertical dropouts



Vertical dropouts were also used on a lot of French randonneur style touring bikes because they made removing and reinstalling the rear wheel with loaded panniers a lot easier.

Aside from fixie fools castrating rear dropouts "RD hanger-ectomys" on French bikes while not common was more of a US thing because Campagnolo and Japanese RDs were far more popular.

Simplex and Huret RDs with their proprietary hangers were still common and popular in France well into the late 70's.

"Is it wrong, or just French"

verktyg

Yeah. If I may be so bold as to borrow from [MENTION=381793]gugie[/MENTION]'s Flickr stash (I think as his publicist I can get away with this)....

Before:



During:



After:



But, yeah, I can see why someone would do that to a Simplex or Huret dropout, but why with Campy?

I like that a lot.

Really nice work. Higher temp brazing alloys damage chrome plating. Must have been done with lower melting temperature material???

Back in the early 70's several IDIOT hammersmiths published articles on how to castrate Simplex dropouts so that someone could mount a Campagnolo RD with a claw hanger.

1972 Article


1973 Bike World Article


What a stupid way of doing things?

Back in the early 70's before the all metal Simplex Super LJ derailleurs came on the scene, most of the French bikes with proprietary Simplex dropouts were mid range models like the Gitane Tour de France and Peugeot PX-10s.

Those bikes were not considered anything special and there was so much negativity towards plastic Simplex derailleurs that modifying Simplex derailleur hangers to use Campy or Suntour RDs was de rigueur!

The solution was simple (as Simplex). File a notch for the travel stop at the rear and thread the original 9mm mounting hole with an M10 x 1mm or 10mm x 26 tpi tap. The thread pitches are so close that either tap worked. M10 x 1mm tap is a standard for a lot of spark plugs. They're available for $10 USD or less at auto parts or hardware store.

15-20 minutes of work!

One other thing, the modification still allows Simplex derailleurs to be mounted on those dropouts without any problems. The minor diameter for those 10mm threads is 9mm, the same as the original hole size so the Simplex rear mount bolt still works!

Very pretty! Thanks for the info. A friend has an orange Stella that I keep trying to get but it's too big and he says I don't want a French bike. lol

The hanger thing hits close to home for me. I have a Mercier 300 and a Peugeot px 10 each with hangers removed by saw. Of course they were bargains.

Andy, your Stella looks fantastic! Like so many others, I will look forward to you posting the build up.

Dean

That's a real beauty. Turned out fantastic.

Now I miss old Stella...

RE Simplex dropout mangling - I thought for a second verktyg was going to spout the usual purist thing about not tapping out Simplex dropouts, but dang, there was some real butchery back in the 70s!!!! Those are really some primitive pete atrocious hacks. I only ever knew the last method: tap and notch. It was pretty common, and you could always put the Simplex derailleur back on if you wanted.

That Stella is simply gorgeous.
Wish there was a mic drop smiley cause it really deserves one.

So, are you planning to use an early 1970's Campy groupset to build it up? Really nice frame you have there. The paint is immaculate. Makes me want to go to bed with it. Err, did I just say that?

Edit: Just saw this while searching for more Stellas to check out the components on them. The paint scheme looks almost identical to yours:

Fantastic Stella!

Looks like a nice build with period components.

Edit 2: I didn't know the brand and the fact that Louison Bobet rode one in 1953-54. Really cool history this brand has.

Turned out really nice. The Lug lining is tops. Don

...that is just an exceptional restoration. Kudos to everyone involved.
I have a soft spot for Stella bikes, because my first "real" road bike was a Stella.

I've been using the term "hack happy fixie idjits" to describe these jokers. I think I like "fixie fools castrating rear dropouts" a bit better!

There's probably a clause somewhere in the fine print of a document I may have signed under the influence of rehydrating liquid that gives you that right.

I flux the heck out of the entire chromed area. Silver flux drips off real easily when the water boils off, so I apply several layers to build up a nice dry "crust". I've done this on several occassions to protect chrome, and it's worked well for me.

And, yes, I use lower temperature silver, and am careful with heat control.

Andy and I were worried about the non-chromed area rusting, but so far it hasn't been an issue. It might be a preventative maintenance thing to do once a year, oil it, or something like that. At worst it's fairly hidden behind the derailleur.
The Atelier is somewhat closed for the summer, but as soon as it starts raining...

I'm sure this is going to disappoint a few people, but the components I'm going to use are almost as new as the paint.

NOS Campagnolo Comp Triple Drivetrain (c. 2010)





That will be paired with Potenza brakes (2018, but retro-fitted with longer bolts for nutted attachment).



10-speed Centaur shifters will round out the mix.



The wheels are H Plus Son TB14 rims laced to Campy hubs (Victory front, Veloce rear). Sorry, no pictures of those.

I intentionally avoided modern braze-ons (apart from the bottle bosses) to keep a bit of the vintage flavor in the build. I have a set of Huret clamp-on pieces -- including my personal favorite vintage accessory, a Huret Jubilee bottom bracket cable guide -- for a tip of the cap to the bike's French heritage. I think it will end up looking pretty classy, while also being configured the way I like for riding.

Yeah, the palmarès on the decals are Bobet's. Twenty years later, he was still their guy.

[MENTION=8403]ollo_ollo[/MENTION] has a cool picture of the Stella factory that he shared in another thread.

Oh, ok. A more modern build. I'm on board with that. Maybe should have guessed a more non-traditional build since you had the water bottle bosses added. I'm intrigued to hear how it rides as compared to some others you have ridden. Did you have the rear seat stays cold set to 130mm?