wheelman21
On Training Wheels
Hi everyone. I'm new here and new to the vintage bicycle world. I recently inherited my grandfather's 52 Monark. He passed away a few years ago. He never had a lot in life and took a lot of pride in his bicycle when he was younger. My original plan was to do a full restoration, repaint, new chrome etc. Well I've decided against that. I want to keep it original and basically clean it up to the point it was when it put it in storage decades ago. I want to preserve the "scars" and character. The nicks in the paint, the dings, the scuffs in the handlebars. I cleaned up the chrome by hand and removed a lot of the corrosion, while preserving the character. My issue right now is the wheels. They are hands down the worst. I've worked on cleaning one by hand with steel wool, but it's seriously tough sledding. And the chrome is extremely pitted. I'm really torn on what to do here. I'd really like to use them since they are the original. I can have them powdercoated, I can replace them (least preferred option), or if anyone has any better suggestions I'm totally interested. I'll try and add some pictures but the forum doesn't seem to like them for some reason. I'm open to suggestions!