A friend of mine passed a frame to me that was supposedly a 'vintage' Bianchi flat bar road bike. It came to me with the worst rattle can paint job I have ever seen with surface rust in several spots where paint was missing. Feeling inside the tubes at the bottom bracket I found that there is at least some surface rust inside the tubes. The bike is steel, the bottom bracket has a seam, the stay brace and break bridge are plain tubes and the lugs and dropouts are 'generic'. The chain stays are crimped from and after market kickstand. The fork is a threaded steel uni-crown.

It came with a VeloOrange threaded headset and a worn out loose bearing, square taper bottom bracket. The bottom bracket is English threads.

The underside of the lugs have a blocked swirl kind of symbol with different numbers at the head tube. The underside of the top tube lug has a G2, the underside of the downtube is a FO. The underside of the top tube lug at the seat cluster has the same symbol with a G3. The bottom bracket has two numbers. The forward side number is h9B37350 and the rear side number is 5o64.

It is possible I am wrong but I don't see a vintage bike, I don't know enough about Bianchi's to be certain but I don't think it is since it has English threads.

see nothing here to suggest or confirm edoardoness. are dropouts maeda (suntour)?

Bianchigirll will be along momentarily to enlighten the multitude...

those lugs are marked with the lug manufacturers logo, and it's Japanese...can't recall if it's Eisho or something else but somebody here might chime in before my brain cells do!
Anyway, there WERE Japanese Bianchis, and those would have BSC/ISO BB shell, but I don't think this is one of those...Bianchigirll will know better. I think it's another JP brand, but which one I sure don't know.
The serial numbers might be the best clue.

Edit: Looks like there might have been a brake-hanger arch brazed on the seatstays that has been ground off, that's one thing that Volpes had, and Volpes had a unicrown fork, but not sure about any of the other features....this is one for Bianchigirll!

I finally got around to the the fork, the steerer tube had been painted but when I stripped the paint I found " AKISU 89 ". Doing a google search I find that Akisu made some BMX bikes in the 80's. On Ebay I found some low end road forks made by Akisu.

Akisu made great cromolly forks. It's a worthy bike of riding, if that's what matters to you. It was definitely some sort of tourer/sports tourer.

akisu's ordinary quality road forks are very poor. the metal used in them is just awful. they are found on many department store and house brand bicycles. one way to spot them is the slot in the fork tip for a safety retention washer.

no wish to impugn the fork on the bicycle under discussion.

I am probably going to build it up but I am not sure which direction to go with it. I have been debating painting it or clear coating it to show the bare metal. I am facing a layoff and may not be in a position to fund building it up so I have also thought about passing it on to someone else.

I have thought about going with a Shimano 600/Tri-color group or a Deore mountain group with some cyclocross wheels / tires.

It is isn't super light but it isn't super heavy either. I see the potential for a fairly decent bike that could go in a few different directions.

since it presently resides in bare metal you would presumably want to either get it primered or clear coated right away to preempt visitation from senor ferrous oxide.