Murray Missile 

Got the artwork for my new decals from Gus Salmon, sorry can't post it per his request and I wholly understand, but it's fantastic. I butchered a couple of the decals removing them but he was able to bring them back from the dead. Frame is at the LBS to see if he can take a little bit of a sag out of the top tube. He said it's not from the collision, it's from overheating it when they brazed the cable guides on. It's getting a color change and I'm switching up the paint scheme a bit. I'm going to paint a bit more of the stays and upper fork legs and leave the lugs chrome. Part of that is because I want a bike with chrome lugs but also a previous owner engraved his full name into the outside of the LH chainstay. Couldn't do it on the inside, OH HECK NO, he had to carve it up where it shows. So, I'm going to file down the high spots and fill it in with JB Weld, smooth it and paint the stays far enough back to cover it up which would be consistent with an old school paint scheme. I've done the JB fill and file before on other stuff, ALL legally acquired LOL, and it turned out great. He also engraved the RH crank spider, the RD body and the top of the stem. The stem I think I can sand and polish, the crank is pretty deep as is the RD which wasn't all that sweet anyway. It's Campy and it works but it is pretty beat up otherwise. The FD is no gem either, it looks like it had a zinc plated cage and it is badly dulled and stained. Again, functional but fugly. The crank doesn't excite me other than the drillium chain rings, I may try to fing different crank arms the chain rings will fit. I also have a nice Campy Triomphe crankset I may use on it instead.

stefthehat

Sorry to be very late to this thread ,that era Italian frame is v v likely to be Columbus SL tubing but I remember reading years ago in Tony Oliver’s book ‘touring bikes’ that he often built Reynolds tubed frames[especially road bikes likely to be in a crash]with Columbus SL forks as they would often bend but leave the frame rideable albeit with a new fork and a similar shunt on a Reynolds [531]fork would bend the frame even in relatively low speed impacts but might leave you with ok forks

rossiny

Fork looks bent ....

bboy314

I’m curious to hear more about this. What exactly is meant by “sag” in the top tube?

Murray Missile 

Bent?!



Nah.... that's just the camera angle.....

Seriously, it's even worse than it looks in the picture. It's not only bent back a half mile and off to one side about an inch but when I got it out the steerer tube was bent at the crown and also about 2 inches above the crown race. I suspect that bend may be from a failed attempt to straighten it. Wish I could find another Columbus fork but I have a a new fully chromed Cro-Mo (probably 4130) fork with an uncut, unthreaded steerer tube I bought for something else a few years ago that looks nearly identical that will suffice for now.

No frame damage from the collision but it does have a sag in the top tube that doesn't show in th picture. The LBS says he sees that a lot in mass produced Italian frames and that it probably came that way, It's more than likely from overheating the TT while brazing on the cable guides, he's going to try to straighten it but couldn't guarantee he'd get it all out. It's not horrble but it bugs me.

bboy314

Do you know what the LBS will do to take out the “sag”? Do you have a picture of that spot? I’m still curious as to what is meant by that.

Murray Missile 

Picture a clothesline with a little bit of slack in it, just enough you can see it if you look just right. It won't affect the handling of the bike but now that I've seen it..... He's going to support the bottom of the tube along its full length and then put a tool between the BB and the support and very slowly and gently try pushing it up. He said he's not sure he can get it completely straight without stressing the frame in other areas though so if he thinks it may cause an issue with the rest of the frame he'll stop. He's a framebuilder and worked for Tom Teasdale when he was younger before becoming an engineer, he opened the bike shop after he retired from that, he knoweth his stuff. He's done a couple other frame repairs for me and I trust him implicitly.