jjhabbs 

Hey guys,
I know some of you dont like video so I put a warning on the post. In this video I check to see if my Comp GS is cracked~ I sand it down. Check it out.

droppedandlost 

My mouth was literally hanging open when I saw that chisel

bulgie 

Looks like water bottle bosses were added, and painted black, with the forward part of the downtube (with decals) masked off. So the straight line was the mask line, with new black paint (and some red primer under it) in the vicinity of the braze-ons.

Did a Comp GS of that era normally come with braze-ons? Even if they did and this braze on is not "aftermarket", it could have been a repair done before the frame even left the factory. Set aside with some sort of QC fail, and repaired by the in-house fixer.

Any chance there's another similar mask line down below the braze-ons? Could be all the way down at the lug edge of the BB shell, because that's the easiest place to hide a paint repair.

A shame to refinish a bike with such a nice original finish. "It's only original once". Maybe moot if the H2O bosses were added and the paint was repaired, so this finish isn't really original, or at least not pristine.

Mark B.

gugie 

I've had a few Raleigh GS frames come throught the Atelier, none had bottle braze-ons. On this frame I disagree with the "it's only original once", it's a fairly common frame, bottle bosses are easy upgrades to a frame, and glossy black is very easy to prime and paint to match. @Andy_K did just that, and I've ridden with him a few times since and never can tell where the old paint ended and the new paint started. Most any other color is difficult to match, but this is an exception to the rule. The OP's bike looks like a poor job of painting, heavily sprayed right up to the masking line rather than feathered in.

Narhay

Are you going to add any other braze ons while you're at it? Shifter bosses, another bottle set, top tube guides, bb cable guides, etc.

cudak888 

Beware, I'm not going to sugar coat this reply - but please note that this is not personal.

When was the last time a 531 frame showed up on this forum, CR, or anywhere else on the internet with a weird, perfect circular crack in the middle of the downtube? Never. Not even heat-treated 753, unless the tube has been horribly buckled, anyway.

It was a bad tape line all along. This could have been confirmed with the forum first - after all, it's no secret now that the water bottle braze-ons are additions. This could have saved some serious caveman-levels of bike restoration hackery with paint stripper and a chisel.

Sure, a black downtube is easy to re-match. Sure, the Raleigh paint is thinner than a politician's promises. Sure, it's a Competition G.S., so no great loss to repaint anything on it; there are a gazillion more of these where it came from.

BUT that doesn't preclude approaching the problem with finesse, namely wetsanding the area. Yes, perhaps it would have sacrificed the original decals. Yes, perhaps the result wouldn't have looked as good as you would have wished. Yes, maybe burning through the original paint would have been inevitable, even with the utmost of care. But none of this was ever tried, and since you have the oxygen of publicity with videos (more so than the forum), somebody following "that expert on YouTube" is likely to emulate it.

Rule #1 of refurbishing these things, always try the LEAST DESTRUCTIVE method first. This isn't it.

Your reach is a lot greater and you should be a lot more careful with the information you put out. This is not "bicycle restoration," nor is it "crack identification," this is "average Joe screws up screwed up paint job looking for a crack that was never there." Someday, this video just might mean someone will wreck the paint job on a bike that does matter. Not saying it's likely, but it's possible.

Sorry if this comes off harsh, but I predict that this video will - in a few years - lead to a lot of fearmongering over paint edge touchups, "cracked" steel frames, and a lot of chisels taken to bikes by people more likely to follow a YouTuber's "advice" rather than page through this forum. Oh, yes - and a whole lot of paint stripper thrown at bikes that shouldn't have seen paint stripper.

-Kurt

xiaoman1 

In my book, wet sanding with 1200 to remove the line and a good polish would have done it.
JMO, Best, Ben

Kabuki12

I really don’t care how many of these were made . I love mine and don’t really mind not having water bottle bosses. I prefer a handlebar mount anyway. I was lucky enough to get mine in new condition as the original owner bought it new in 1977 and never rode it . I bought it in 2015 and even got the privilege of breaking in the Brooks Pro saddle. I have put many miles on the bike , I just wish it were an inch taller! Thankfully the GB stem I found allows for a taller setting and the Campy seat post is adequate. I have some nice bikes in my collection but the Raleigh seems to draw the most attention. Shiney black with chrome socks , what’s not to like?

Fahrenheit531 

My new video: I check to see if this bowling ball is actually a SPIDER! Click to find out!

genejockey 

I understand the compulsion to get the answer as fast as possible, using whatever's at hand, but NEXT time, at least cut the old cables off. And, yeah, the chisel. I could see scratches in the metal, which you then had to sand down through to get rid of. That part made me cringe. Another thought is, if you're planning on repainting the frame if it's solid anyway, stripping it down and just having it bead blasted is probably pretty cheap.

But, hey - you got the answer, and it was the RIGHT answer! Now the frame can be redone and built back up into a beautiful bike!

BTW, I found your YouTube channel looking for videos on Lotus bikes. Your Supreme inspired me in my own Lotus project - a 1982 Supreme, one of the Tsunoda-brazed ones with Tange Champion #2 tubing. Not as pristine as yours, by a long shot! Also, I point to your videos and tell my family, "See! Seven bikes is NOTHING! Look at this guy's garage!"

unterhausen

if it had been cracked all the way around, you wouldn't need to remove the paint to tell it was cracked. Just flex it a little.

Removing paint is a really horrible way to tell if a frame is cracked, unless you polish carefully and have a microscope. Because cracks close right up until they are very long.

gugie 

Handlebar mount waterbottles seem to be way underrated, and look "right" on a vintage bike. A lot less work than brazing some bosses on and touching up the paint, and no need to bend down to grab your bottle during a ride!

cudak888 

I've run handlebar mount bottles, and they're the cat's meow. I've never felt the weight or sloshing of the liquid either; upright bar or drops. I've never run duals though.

-Kurt

gugie 

I've felt both the weight and the sloshing. I'm pretty sure it had nothing to do with the bike, however.

Bad Lag

Just tap the tube. If it's cracked, you'll know by the sound.

I have nothing good to say, so I won't say any more.

Enjoy the bike and its new paint job.

xiaoman1 

Kabuki12

The other thing I like is that when you go to drink you don't get road grime in your first drink , or on your jersey if you have enough foresight to wipe it clean! I had to stop watching the video when the chisel came out.

steelbikeguy

I've got the T.A. handlebar bottle cage on 3 of my 4 vintage bikes. I started using them back when they were common... mid 70's, and have been quite happy with them.
The main barrier to using a handlebar cage nowadays is just the cost or difficulty of finding one. The Minoura adapters might be the easiest/cheapest to find now.

Here's my Raleigh International with the T.A. bar cage...


Steve in Peoria

xiaoman1 

Steve in Peoria,
Yeah, that's the ticket and the way to roll/ride...and much easier to check for cracks because there is no paint involved.
Best, Ben

gugie 

And you'd ruin a perfectly good paint job in a classic color.

Hmm, I've got an International frame hanging up in the Atelier in my size...

xiaoman1 

I might know of a source for a chisel if you need one....all kidding aside thanks to jjhabbs for his commitment to his/our passion.
Best, Ben

steelbikeguy

with the Internationals, the paint is a wonderful "flamboyant" (a.k.a. "candy") color that is glorious in the sun, and pretty much impossible to touch up. Any mods to the frame would likely require a complete respray.
OTOH, with John's black Competition, a painter should have been able to do a bit better job of blending the resprayed area with the original paint.

I won't deny that I generally prefer to have bottle cage braze-ons, but some clamp-on cages aren't too bad. I have a T.A. Competition cage that has a single clamp band that I used on an earlier brown International. I was quite happy with the cage (which is now resting in my parts box)...



I wonder what it would take to get Nitto to reproduce either the T.A. Criterium cage or the T.A. handlebar cage?
And is there sufficient demand to justify the tooling costs?

Steve in Peoria

gugie 

+1 on both counts.

I do a lot of frame mods to vintage frames, but do my best to stay away from frames in very good to excellent shape. I like it when I get a ratty frame with good bones or easily fixed issues (I have a torch, so my definition of "easily fixed" may be more generous than most).

Example:

This Bertin C37 was pretty ratty when I found it, but nothing that couldn't be fixed easily:



A bunch of mods, a custom rack and fresh powder coat later:

Narhay

The minoura handlebar cage clamp scratched up my handlebars and it would tilt unless you tightened it so much it bent the U bolts.

cbrstar

I didn't even need to watch this video to know that it was just the decal was yellowed with age.