My first Pre-war

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I found an ad on Craigslist that showed only a partial view of what was a very rusty bicycle for a low low price.

I was lucky caller number one and the seller held it for me till the next day when I went there to pick it up. He said he had gotten up to 30 calls on it after I talked to him but held it for me, which was refreshing, in this county it's dog eat dog... first come and you get it most of the time. He also threw in a extra rim and crankset with it!
20160328_131125 by shwsrvcs, on Flickr
20160328_131328 by shwsrvcs, on Flickr
20160328_152838 by shwsrvcs, on Flickr
20160416_154248 by shwsrvcs, on Flickr

I spent a while peeling back a thick sheen of rust little by little trying more abrasive techniques till finally I was rubbing the frame wiith a medium sandpaper sponge I usually use to sand away the bits of paint normal sanding doesn't get off. It was then I was able to best determine somewhat confidently that what I had was a pre war Rollfast circa 1937. That is one or two years younger than my parents. Still even with the paint finally showing, it was clear that the rust was fully in control of the situation and I would have to deciide to just go with the flow or make the rust go.

20160330_013519 by shwsrvcs, on Flickr

20160330_013710 by shwsrvcs, on Flickr

20160330_175551 by shwsrvcs, on Flickr

I decided to make it all go... and so I began with the rims.... and then piece by piece day by day... I worked on it...
20160402_131438 by shwsrvcs, on Flickr
20160402_131505 by shwsrvcs, on Flickr
20160402_131554 by shwsrvcs, on Flickr
20160403_201435 by shwsrvcs, on Flickr
20160403_215216 by shwsrvcs, on Flickr
20160403_215404 by shwsrvcs, on Flickr
20160407_194837 by shwsrvcs, on Flickr

I didn't end up getting the look i was hoping for in the end though. I'm finishing it tonight and have a buyer coming by for it in the morning.

It riides nice. I made sure all the mechanical points were up par and like new. I'll post final pics of it after I take some in the morning sun. till then.. here is one last one taken a couple days ago when I was putting it back together.

20160414_145840 by shwsrvcs, on Flickr
 
Nice bike! wish I could see larger pics tho. Would you put a couple finished pics on the site using "Upload a file" button below? :)
 
Here are 3 pics i took this morning. In then end, I opted to go white on the head tube area instead of the blue, mostly due to messing up the intended look for the arrows. Those were way harder to do than i had thought and in the end I ended up wussing out and didn't get them accurate like I wanted to.

But I did get to bring this one back to being ridable and learned some good contextual history about bicycles in the process.
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Very nice! Thanks for the bigger pics too.
You have the right idea, look how you brought that bike back! :thumbsup:
 
Very nice! Thanks for the bigger pics too.
You have the right idea, look how you brought that bike back! :thumbsup:
Much appreciated.

I see how important fit and finish is when I see images here on this site of other people's work and though I am nowhere near that level, I try to get closer each bike I work on. thanks for the encouraging words all of you!

I don't usually see many bikes of this era around these parts at a price like I got this one for. I was imagining big profit but in the end, I'll get a pizza and the revenue to find the next bicycle to work on and that's in reality the end goal anyways...
 

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