# Late 50's Follis



## Amanda Reckonwith (Jun 22, 2020)

...I just got my next project, this late 50's Follis.  Here are some pictures as received, before disassembly begins.


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## 1motime (Jun 22, 2020)

Nice old thing.  Great details.  Share some photos of the entire bike!


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## Amanda Reckonwith (Jun 22, 2020)

...from the sunshine front hub branding, it's obvious the wheels are replacements, as is the rear derailleur. I'm uncertain about that bar/stem combination.  You see it on bike boom French bikes, but I'm not sure it goes back to the late 50's

It was obviously a nice frame, because you can see the proprietary Follis head tube reinforcements, and a lot of the remaining chrome on the rear stays and fork socks.  I'll probably paint it, because while the paint isn't that bad for something this old, the chrome is pretty bad and appears to be unsalvageable without rechroming, which is both difficult and expensive to make happen here in California.


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## Amanda Reckonwith (Jun 22, 2020)

...I could use some of the Juvela magic on this.  I'm thinking the rear derailleur was one of those Simplex pull chain/flat wound coil spring ones. But I have no idea on hubs, and the pedals may or may not be originals.  I would be grateful when and if you have the time to weigh in on this one.

Anyone else is more than welcome to speculate. It's a 24" frame (c-t), so exactly my preferred size. It will definitely be a rider.


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## Amanda Reckonwith (Jun 23, 2020)

...disassembly proceeds. The stem was frozen in the steerer, but otherwise with little drama.


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## Amanda Reckonwith (Jun 23, 2020)

...here are the frame dropouts.  They are not the standard ones that were used for so many years with the old Simplex Juy derailleurs, so I am still confused as to what rear derailleur this had as original. Any help would, of course, be much appreciated. I looked at many of the 1950's Simplex rears on Velobase, and I'm damned if I can find one that I think will work.  This must be a later frame, from the transition period to more modern attachment ?


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## Amanda Reckonwith (Jun 23, 2020)

...so anyway, the rest of the bicycle came apart without much drama.  I used the MAPP gas torch alternating with the Freeze Off a couple of cycles on the cotters, the pedals, and anything else that I thought might have been together for a long time, like the crank cups. A couple more pictures showing setups for various specialty tools.

As a bare frame, you can see the elegance of what it was originally, back sometime in the late 1950's. Found an appropriate stem an inch longer, which I will need for fitting, in the stems crate.  Will be searching for a slightly better alloy seat post later on. I have some wheels with Super Champion 27" rims and Campy hubs that will look not too out of place and ride reasonably well.  I have temporarily given up on the idea of a period correct push rod rear derailleur, after I found something perfect on ebay for 2150 euro.  It will work better, and look OK for a while with something out of my Simplex rear derailleur collection.

I'm going back and forth on painting it as original, in this flamboyant red with blue accents on the head and seat tubes, and just going with the bluish metallic silver you see on a lot of Follis bikes in old race photos. It was synonymous with the brand.







^^^crank is paired at 50/47, which is reasonable for what I will do with this bike^^^














^^^that bar is steel, and it   weighs a ton. So that's going along with the stem. ^^^


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## Amanda Reckonwith (Jun 26, 2020)

...waiting on a smaller adjustable reamer, and it's too hot to do much outside today.  So I set up the frame and fork to realign and spread them to accept the new wheelset,   at 100mm OLD front and 120mm OLD rear.  It's an interesting process, simple to do on an older frame like this that was probably built with seamed Durifort  tubing (or similar).

The photos should be self explanatory. I use the depth gauge on a Vernier caliper to measure the side to side differences, string to seat tube. Same caliper measures the distance between the fork ends and dropouts.  These rear dropouts have been widened by someone at one time, but I'm not willing to try squeezing them closed a little bit for fear of breaking one.  Whatever reward gained is not worth the risk in this case.










First pull ended up at 123 mm, and roughly equidistant, so it's just a process of gently pulling both sides inward until you get 120 mm (or pretty close.)







Anytime you do this, you need to check/adjust for parallel surfaces.


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## Amanda Reckonwith (Jun 26, 2020)

...for fork alignment, it's a lot easier if you have an alignment jig.  This one is an old VAR.





This fork was spaced at 96 mm, which is not uncommon for older French forks/hubs. Needs to be 100 mm and parallel fork ends at that spacing.









The fork ends rarely end up parallel when you change the spacing, so they need to be gently but firmly set to parallel.


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## Amanda Reckonwith (Jun 29, 2020)

...oxalic acid bath day.


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## schwinnderella (Jun 29, 2020)

Cool bike, please don't paint it.


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## Amanda Reckonwith (Jun 29, 2020)

...right now, it's gonna get at least the chrome parts painted (probably to match what's there).

Were it not for the unfortunate status of the chrome, the paint itself is in remarkably good shape...the red is a little faded, as happens with all red flamboyants, but not that badly. I'll look at again after the oxalic treatments and see where it's at, but trying to match a faded flamboyant paint job by doing  partial stay and fork repaint is virtually impossible. I've tried once before with a green flamboyant Carlton Flyer, and it just don't work.

A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.   It's not gonna be a full on "authentic original" restoration anyway, because I plan to ride it.


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## 1motime (Jun 29, 2020)

Amanda Reckonwith said:


> ...right now, it's gonna get at least the chrome parts painted (probably to match what's there).
> 
> Were it not for the unfortunate status of the chrome, the paint itself is in remarkably good shape...the red is a little faded, as happens with all red flamboyants, but not that badly. I'll look at again after the oxalic treatments and see where it's at, but trying to match a faded flamboyant paint job by doing  partial stay and fork repaint is virtually impossible. I've tried once before with a green flamboyant Carlton Flyer, and it just don't work.
> 
> A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.   It's not gonna be a full on "authentic original" restoration anyway, because I plan to ride it.



You are painting the chrome parts?


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## Amanda Reckonwith (Jun 29, 2020)

1motime said:


> You are painting the chrome parts?



...depending on what they look like after the oxalic, yes that's a strong possibility. It's common practice on stuff like Italian bicycle forks and chain stays to rough and paint rusted chrome to match the rest of the paint scheme. I _would_ like to keep the signature head tube reinforcements in some kind of contrasting color, so if those have to get painted, it will probably be in an arctic silver sort of color. But the fork and stay socks can disappear under paint without too much regret.

I realize that there are people with the "all original" aesthetic who disapprove, but I can't help that.

I want a bike I can ride without worrying too much about future recurrence of corrosion, and that won't require regular maintenance. Certainly the wheels and tyres will be an update, and while my original plan was to go with a Simplex pushrod derailleur like the one that probably came on it, by the time this bike was made and sold, the Campy Gran Sport rear derailleur had been in use and sold for 8 or 9 years. It was seen a lot in the racing bikes of the period, works better than a pushrod Simplex, and most importantly is available in large numbers on Ebay, at considerably cheaper prices than the older Simplex pull chain ones.


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## Amanda Reckonwith (Jun 29, 2020)

...the results from the OA bath.  You can see the thin strip of chrome that was protected by paint (probably a gold stripe) at the top of the sock.  I will definitely be sripping the original paint and repainting this with something that approximates the original, but in more durable materials.


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## Amanda Reckonwith (Jun 30, 2020)

...the seat tube lug was out of round, and the post fitted in there was too small, at 25.8 mm. So I reamed it to fit a 26 mm seatpost. I had no reamer that would go that small, so the cheap adjustable one from Amazon arrived yesterday evening. In a stroke of luck, I discovered a 26 mm Campagnolo seat post out in the garage.


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## Amanda Reckonwith (Jun 30, 2020)

...more miscellaneous small jobs, fitting up to make sure everything will go back together and work reasonably well (prior to painting). Turns out I did need to take a pump plier and squeeze those dropout closed and parallel.


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## Amanda Reckonwith (Jun 30, 2020)

...rethreading the cranks to accept a wider range of functional pedals without driving myself nuts looking for something French I can use comfortable with wide feet.


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## Amanda Reckonwith (Jul 1, 2020)

...based on prior experience, it's a mistake to start painting a bike project until you have a good idea of the decal colors you'll be using.  So I found a couple of 50's Follis decal images on the internet to work with.  One looks like it is the identical sticker that was originally on this bike, but is primarily a red color, so won't look good against a red downtube. I'd have to paint the frame blue. with a contrasting head tube and seat tube band. 

The other is from a Follis motorcycle, looks to be about the same graphic design, but will contrast nicely with a red neo-flamboyant paint scheme.

I downloaded some images, and started roughing them up in Photopea.


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## Amanda Reckonwith (Jul 3, 2020)

...the original paint and the small amount of pitted remainder of the chrome is now (mostly) removed.  The original paint was great stuff, with a coat of red primer, an over coat on that of a light metallic silver, and some sort of transparent red lacquer or enamel over that.  There was plenty of corrosion on the chromed surfaces, but none to speak of where the frame was painted.

Removing, smoothing, and preparing the chromed areas required a bench grinder and a wire wheel. So somewhat tedious in nature.

It is a very artfully brazed and finished frame.  Obviously it was worked up with pride in craftsmanship.


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## GTs58 (Jul 3, 2020)

Great thread documenting your rebuild.


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## Amanda Reckonwith (Jul 3, 2020)

...thank you.  I never did a full photo spread of one of these before.  Maybe someone can borrow some of my intuitive methods. I think next time I do one, I'm gonna go with aircraft stripper, even though it's nasty.  Taking the paint off this one has been quite a chore. The repainting will be fun, though.


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## Amanda Reckonwith (Jul 5, 2020)

...it was a warm day here yesterday, with little wind. So I got off the last of the old paint and put on a coat of self etching grey primer, followed a coiuple of hours later by a white primer.  That will harden in a couple of days to the point where I can wet sand it, then start some color work.









Still working on the downtube image.


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## 1motime (Jul 5, 2020)

Nice!  Bare metal really tells the story of well made hand construction.


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## Amanda Reckonwith (Jul 7, 2020)

...some of the color coats to get a flamboyant red finish using modern enamels. There's a white primer coat over the grey self etching one, then silver over that,  Then a transparent red enamel from Testor's (now owned by Rustoleum).

After this, the head tube will be painted blue at the same time a blue seat tube band goes on.

After that dries some, the lettering, then a final coat of 2 part urethane clear from SprayMax.


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## GTs58 (Jul 7, 2020)

Nice! Getting the frame painted is the fun part. Curious though, why did you choose Testors paint over all the other candy red paints?


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## Amanda Reckonwith (Jul 7, 2020)

...easy to get locally, and I didn't have to go over to the auto paints store.  It doesn't seem to matter much once you put on the final coat of urethane. I've even put that stuff on over lacquer, and it seems to work fine. It's a modern space age miracle !


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## GTs58 (Jul 7, 2020)

Amanda Reckonwith said:


> ...easy to get locally, and I didn't have to go over to the auto paints store.  It doesn't seem to matter much once you put on the final coat of urethane. I've even put that stuff on over lacquer, and it seems to work fine. It's a modern space age miracle !




LOL! Yep, a modern space age miracle created by the governments restrictions. I shoot enamel over lacquer all the time so I don't have to wait a week or two going from a silver base to the color coat. Here's Metalcast Blue candy over a flat aluminum.


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## Amanda Reckonwith (Jul 12, 2020)

...masked and painted the head tube and seat tube band this morning.


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## Amanda Reckonwith (Jul 15, 2020)

...we've had some nice weather, and I had to wait a couple of days to get my lettering decals. I ended up designing and ordering some from this guy, who has a website with a lot of creative fonts and some effects like curving you can apply.  Not very expensive and a quality product.  I thought they would be cheaper and easier than any historical reproduction I could muster up using Photoshop. And he cuts out the background and preps them with masking tape for application.  I'm pleased with the result.

This is with all the paint on, and a clear urethane over everything once the letting had a day or two to dry in place.

Far  from an authentic original restoration, but still we do what we can.


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## 1motime (Jul 15, 2020)

Looks great!  The red has a nice twinkle in the sun!


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## Amanda Reckonwith (Jul 15, 2020)

...thanks.  I probably will move on to a Colnago paint repair while this one hardens up a little bit before reassembly.  Need to rivet the headbadge back on, too.  Will post up some photos when it's back on the road.


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## Amanda Reckonwith (Jul 20, 2020)

...did some reassembly this morning.  It begins to look like a bicycle again.


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## 1motime (Jul 20, 2020)

Looking good!  Very classic looking 10 speed!


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## Amanda Reckonwith (Jul 20, 2020)

...thanks.


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## Amanda Reckonwith (Jul 21, 2020)

...put n four or five solid hours today, figuring out the gearing and brakes, then reassembling them . The mechanicals are all good, so sometime in the next couple of days I'll mount the saddle, post, a bottle cage on the bar, bar tape, and some kind of saddle or bar bag, and take it out for a short shakedown ride.


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## GTs58 (Jul 21, 2020)

What a beauty. I hope you'll be able to reach that suicide shifter. Looks like it needs a little fine adjusting and that might make it a tad bit lower.


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## Amanda Reckonwith (Jul 21, 2020)

...you might think so, but I swapped out the cage for something newer off a Simplex pushrod front derailleur with better chrome. If it goes any lower it interferes with the large chainring, and it works fine right where it is. I tinkered with that the better part of 45 minutes I'll never get back, so it's not going anywhere.


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## 1motime (Jul 21, 2020)

Those things have a "sweet spot" and have to be in just the right spot.  It drives you crazy sometimes!


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## Amanda Reckonwith (Jul 23, 2020)

...been for a couple of rides now.  It's more or less done, and seems to ride well. Steers and rides like something from the 70's, rather than the 50's, probably because of the geometry.  Plan to put fenders on it at some later date, but for now, it's a rider.

Some interesting features are the Beborex side pull brakes, which work pretty well (and the levers fit nicely into current hoods designed for Dia Compe levers). they have a built in rear quick release.  The frame is built with Simplex Competition dropouts, which are kind of an interesting design, and thick enough to take a QR skewer without adapting it. I think it's made with Durifort tubing, but am not certain. And the gearing of 51/49 on the front makes for a reasonable range with a 24-14 freewheel (the one on it now is 26-14, but the rear derailleur is set to dial out the 26 cog).

I have an older 50's Simplex pull chain Tour de France derailleur, and I might later experiment with it on this bike, but for now it works well as pictured, and I'd like to just ride it for a while before I start messing with it again.


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## 1motime (Jul 23, 2020)

Looking good!  it got you there and hopefully back.  Some bikes are never done.  Go for rides, tinker and fine tune.  Good job!  Making me inspired to drag my old Ideor out.....


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## HARPO (Jul 24, 2020)

Worth all the energy and effort! Nice job.


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## Amanda Reckonwith (Jul 24, 2020)

...thanks to all for the encouragement.  It's always an adventure.


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## comet (Jul 24, 2020)

I'd be proud to ride that. Beautiful.


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## Amanda Reckonwith (Jul 24, 2020)

...I got around to figuring out the correct way to switch out a newer simplex front derailleur cage onto the rod. It involves removing the rod from the bike (only takes a minute), and then regrinding the flat on the rod that is the seat for the cage attachment screw to a slightly different angle.  Now works much better, and the newer cage has a more advanced profile that shifts smoother.  New front derailleur set at an angle that looks like this:


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## bikerbluz (Aug 30, 2020)

Very beautiful bike. Really appreciate all your work and time on this machine, as well as the excellent lay out of pics and info while on the journey. The 50’s road bikes are one of my favorite groups within our quite diverse hobby. Enjoy the ride!


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## all riders (Aug 30, 2020)

I think it looks, from one of the pics, that the stem on the bike might be an AVA. It would be clearly marked (on top where the bars pass through). If so, consider replacing it--I imagine you know this--they do have a reputation for catastrophic failure. I know there are several bikes and or parts that have this type of reputation without anyone seemingly able to confirm, but I think the AVA stems are a real thing.


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## Amanda Reckonwith (Sep 5, 2020)

...thanks for the concern. Yes, the AVA death stem is a real thing, and in fact, I framed one and hung it on the wall over at the bike co-op here when I worked there some years back. This is not one of the bad ones, they have a very distinctive design, with the expansion ears (inside the steerer) very much thinned.  It is true also that all older aluminum alloy stems from the 70's on back can eventually fail,  but this one appears on inspection to be in pretty good shape.

I have probably replaced ten or a dozen AVA stems on PX-10's for that reason over the years.  Here is a photo of one I replaced, along with the bar. (Not an AVA, but definitely dangerous when I received it.) Note how far the bar has sagged.


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## Amanda Reckonwith (Sep 5, 2020)

...bike now has fenders and a rack, just because I could.


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## all riders (Sep 5, 2020)

yikes! Perhaps, if they had started as randonneur bars, they would be straight now!


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## 49autocycledeluxe (Sep 5, 2020)

great looking bike you have there.


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## 1motime (Sep 5, 2020)

Looks great all decked out!  An invitation to get on and GO!


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## cbustapeck (Sep 9, 2020)

Gorgeous. I love all the little details.


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## JLF (Sep 9, 2020)

Great project build and thread!  Thanks for sharing all the detail!


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