More musings and updates....
After I took the frame, fork and handlebars to be stripped and powder coated. I woke up in the middle of the night with something I perhaps should have tried first on the handlebars.
The handlebars were "celluloid" covered to begin with, which I imagine was a plastic coating or sheath. I realized that I could have had them plated and then slid them into some properly sized black shrink tubing. Shrink tubing comes in dinky to huge sizes. A few minutes in the oven and it would shrink down fine to a soft rubber coating, a few more minutes and it becomes hard.... I imagine, to what the original celluloid would have been. I may still do that.
Waddya think about that?
After looking at the pics I took Ive decided to re-chrome the hubs, but at first, in hand, they don't look too bad. At least they arent destroyed. But The rest of the bike will be new, so those should be also I guess. Just looking for ways to cut a few corners monetarily. Im already up around the $800 mark and all the plating is going to put the bike into the 1500 range before its done.
Got a few more parts in from around the globe. So far Ive found parts in Greece, England, Canada and Thailand. Shipping is a MF though, it brings the price of the parts up quite a bit.
Since I had one front axle wing nut broke anyway and the cost of re-chroming or even polishing was about the same as new ones, I got a new set of exact matching wing nuts. Also got proper cable clamps as they were previously being held to the frame with hockey stick tape.
Another question I've been mulling around is what to do with the other wheel bits. Should I re-use the nipples, and if so, should I have the nipples re-chromed? Should I re-use the spokes? they are pretty rusty but will come clean to natural. And if I do, cad plate or natural. What about the rim strips? they are still usable and one of the coolest old things on the bike. Cotton strips with a metal buckle eyelet. very cool old stuff that survived.
Also found this vintage Bluemels frame pump in Bronze that I think I'll use. The two colors Armstrong was using then were black and bronze. Some of their models had the head center colored bronze. I think I might do that to match the pump. And maybe even color the fenders the same..
One point I found while pouring over the 36' catalog was that the celluloid mudguards were and option over "metal" ones. So perhaps my aluminum originals are just that.
I was amazed to find an actual Lycette Aero saddle. You dont see saddles like this very often. Its narrow like a regular racing saddle but padded and covered like a comfort saddle but with no spring action. I'm going to have to get it recovered though. Its it really good shape for its age but won't last long being sat on. One weird thing about it is that it has a patent number underneath and it shook out to be a Brooks patent Number.
Hmmm