I have been riding around on a converted circa 84 peugot road bike for about a year and the frame has taken scratches, and has a bit of rust as it is 30 year old steel. I was planning on painting the frame and while I`m at it I was wondering if it would be possible to remove all the pieces protruding from the frame as they look ugly and I dont need them. (By this I mean cable leads etc sticking out of the frame) If I took these off with a grinder could I fill in the holes with some sort of molding putty before I paint it. Any advice

taking your time to grind it really well is a much bettter idea. Grinding the braze-ons off wont weaken anything, but if you hit the tubing things will go bad quickly. People will try to talk you out doing it, but ef them, do what you want.

If you put holes in your frame when you are trying to remove cable guides you are doing it wrong and I take them off all the time... of course, I only remove them because they are damaged and replace them when we are repairing frames or because some doofus filed al the guides off a really nice frame and then retired it.

If is is a really nice road frame it would be a bad idea to remove them as one day you might decide that you want a geared bike and then those handy cable guides will be gone.

65 has it right. cable guides, etc, have a full tube underneath, thus no holes.

If you use a torch to remove braze-ons, you may find that some of them are installed in holes drilled in the frame. I have. It's not a problem if you cut and grind.

Do it. Bondo the mistakes, holes, and other doo-dads.

What model is your bike?

Interesting, I wonder what the thinking is on that?