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1930s Phillips Rod Brake Roadster Project

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What a transformation! Wheels look great. Really nice job cleaning up that rear fender. Did you find the new handlebars? I've been keeping eye out but only found complete ladies bike in DC area at eye watering price .

I finally did - a guy here on the CABE had a set that worked out nicely. They even matched the condition of the rest of the bike pretty well.
 
I'll leave a few notes about dealing with the modern-made Westwood rims available online. I've dealt with quite a few types, but not all of them. My experience from best to worst:

-original rims - Raleigh; Phillips; Hercules; Dunlop. By far the best. They tend to be heavy but have a long lifespan. The best of these are the "stainless" ones made by Raleigh after WWII in the 1950s and into the early 1960s.

-bought from Yellow Jersey in Wisconsin (call/email direct) - Yellow Jersey in Wisconsin developed a cottage industry of working with rod brake roadsters and spare parts. They've stocked several different brands over the years from what I can tell. They formerly had "Eastman" rims and spare parts, which I would describe as fairly decent parts. They're not as nice as original British parts, but they're pretty good. The same seems to be true of KW brand rims. They're not as nice as originals, but these are not bad. I've used both brands and they do OK. Yellow Jersey is very good about answering questions.

-bought from online/eBay sellers in Britain - the worst rims and parts I've bought have largely come from British sellers. I've gotten rims branded "Avro" and rims with no branding on them at all. The Avro rims were mediocre: not as nice as the KW or the Eastman from Yellow Jersey. The no-name brand ones were really wimpy. The sellers are not as helpful as Yellow Jersey if you have questions. But they do generally fit and are an option if you have no other alternatives. It gets expensive to ship these. Other parts from these sources have also not been very good - handlebars; brake parts; etc. The parts may be coming from Pakistan or China - they seem different from the Indian parts I've seen.


The one I have not yet tried are the parts from the German "Classic Bike" or "Classic Velo" site. Supposedly they have both steel and aluminum alloy Westwoods, but usually in 36 hole rather than 32 and 40. The alloy interests me because it may be an option for bikes where you want to improve the performance. But the shipping and cost of getting this stuff here has been too high for me to try it.

You have to have nipple/eyelet washers on the Westwood rims. I've seen people get away without them on the original rims, but it's not a great idea. Don't try it on the new India/Paskistan/China rims - the eyelet will bulge on the rim. The no-name brand rims even bulged with the washer and normal spoke tension. I'm not touching those again. Look for "Zipp Firecrest" washers.
 
Thank you SirMike for the detailed notes on Westwood rim options! I am trying to build up courage to take this next step and this will help me greatly!

I was looking at 1939 Phillips catalog and I can't believe how many different types of roller leaver brakes they made. Here is a snipet on different rear brakes.
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A little more work done on the bike - just some details to clean up. Almost there...

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Interesting fact - you can use one of the common "rivnuts" that people use on balloon tire bike fenders to re-build a Sturmey Archer quadrant shifter. The old quadrants often came with a pin that was secured with a press/snap ring or with a soft metal pin. However, you can re-build the quadrant shifters - it is not especially hard. You remove the pivot pin and can slide out the stick shift and the flat spring. This will allow you clean up everything in the shifter, and/or replace or re-shape the protrusion on the shifter stick to give a more positive engagement with the holes in the shifter frame.

You can also repair damaged shifters. In this case, the original pin on this shifter was rotted, but a rivnut of the type used on American ballooner fenders fits great in the Sturmey quadrant and looks a lot like the old, smooth headed pin.

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What a great project/save/result! I've got a early to mid 50s Armstrong Ladies with paint in similar condition to what you started with. The same cloudy paint in places, hazy and crustiness. I was wondering what your favorite method was for cleaning and saving this fine thick English paint? I generally go with 0000 steel wool, Maguires with WD-40 mixed.

Gary
 
What a great project/save/result! I've got a early to mid 50s Armstrong Ladies with paint in similar condition to what you started with. The same cloudy paint in places, hazy and crustiness. I was wondering what your favorite method was for cleaning and saving this fine thick English paint? I generally go with 0000 steel wool, Maguires with WD-40 mixed.

Gary

Yes - on this bike, 0000 steel wool with WD-40 initially, then a final polish with Maguires.

I've used Oxalic Acid and Evaporust in the past - soaking the bike in sections, but I did not use these treatments on this bike, aside from Evaporust on the very lowest tip of the each fender, to remove heavier rust in hard-to-reach folds of the fender edges.

I did not use these chemical treatments this time because I opted for a "well-worn old bike" type look rather than anything much cleaner. When I'm doing the "well worn old bike" look, I don't use much in the way of chemical rust removal. The reason for this is that chemical treatments can shine up the bare metal spots too much, and I'm going more for the "well-used, 85 year old bike look".

The English black paint is superior to any American paint I've come across from that time period. Schwinn and Westfield come to mind as having used decent quality paints, but the English paint has proven much more durable on most bikes I've worked with.

I take each bike as an individual project and adjust my methods accordingly. No two are gone over exactly the same way.
 
Nice day for early January. I've added a set of Bridgeport valve caps and a brass bell. This bell is actually a new production item, but I really like these. They are known as the "Origin 8 Time Clock Bell" online. It's a brass bell with a stainless striker. It's large and somewhat heavy, but it sounds like an old mechanical clock or an old elevator car. It goes well on these large old bikes and it sounds a lot nicer than most of the bells being produced. I also like the plastic sleeve that comes with the bell, because it protects the handlebars while hold the bell firmly in place.

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