Manton & Smith (Nonpareil?) frame fix progress

hello all

been doing some work on the "mystery rider" frame; pretty sure it is a Manton & Smith or Nonpareil at this point. Anyways, the tubes in the kickstand area were badly crushed, so out came the welders for some remedial treatment.

Here's the frame, showing some traces of the original paint details on the front and seatmast:



Here's the damaged tubes; the bottom was basically smoothly crushed, but the tops had three sharp & deep creases on each tube; it looked much worse in the flesh than the pics show...nasty:



Borrowing an idea from the body shop guys, we tacked some rod to the depressions, then heated and used a weight on the rod (with the rod end bent to an "L" to capture the weight) to form a crude slide-hammer; worked pretty well. Some filling using the same rod added metal to fill the tubes where needed...all over.



Here's how it looks after some careful filing:



Need to do another pass at this on the bottom and top, and it should be good to go.

More to come soon; we are going to build a quick jig to check the frame for trueness; the rear tubes are in need of a bit of tweaking for sure. The weld where the two rear tubes meet at the top of the seatmast will probably be removed and replaced as well, as it is incomplete.

cheers

greg v.

Hi Greg,

Looks like you are progressing nicely with your frame. It?s nice to see you are taking the time to fix collapsed chain stays during your restoration.

To clarify one point; Nonpareil is just a brand name, not a manufacturer. It is pretty clear from photo evidence that your bike frame was made by Manton & Smith. It may have been badged as a Manton & Smith or any one of several brand/badges that were used on their bikes. (Nonpareil, Gold Eagle, Winton, Pacer, Standard, Ranger, etc)

Conversely, Manton & Smith was just one of several manufactures that produced bicycles badged as Nonpareil. The Nonpareil badge was used by a second tier bicycle, (and I believe sporting goods) distributor to label bicycles purchased and sold by them.
I don?t know how many different manufacturers produced bikes that were sold as Nonpareils but a Nonpareil badge does turn up on some early CWC produced bikes.

The only clues that can lead to answers as to how the bike was originally badged are the badge hole spacing and any ghosting in the paint that reveals the shape of the original badge. Even then some badges are very unique (Western Flyer for example) but many different badges were produced in identical shapes with identical hole spacing.

One other thing is that if you repair the frame where it has been damaged I would suggest resisting the temptation to improve on the visual quality of the welds. The industrial look of the un-retouched welds on a M & S frame is one of the hallmarks of the company and sets them apart from the crowd.

Great work! Looks tedious but necessary.

hello Phil

thank-you for your usual very informative response, and I appreciate the Nonpareil info especially. I have to say that coming from Schwinns into the rest of the vintage bike world is an eye opener; there is a vast volume of information to digest, to say the least.

In my scouting for a new headbadge I came across quite a few badges that all follow the typical Manton & Smith style:



The "Winton" ones have a smaller hole spacing than mine, and the "Seneca" badge (named after Seneca, Illinois I assume) is what is on the girl's bike that I have linked to on a couple of threads:

http://photos.1offpowdercoating.com/GalleryFilmstrip.aspx?gallery=143993&photo=4878026

Again, this frame seems identical to mine from the seatmast back.

I did look for any ghosting or other clues around the headbagde area my frame, but there was simply nothing there. I have bought the "Pacer" and "Special" badges, and I'll more than likely run the latter.

I agree with you completely about the welds, I have no intention of dressing them. As you state they are a bit of a hallmark of these bikes, and while ugly I am kinda starting to like them in a weird way. My ace welder friend reports that they are good welds (except for that Friday afternoon or Monday morning special at the top of the seatmast), just not finished at all (except for those at the front).

thanks again for all the info, it's a great help!

cheers

greg v.

JLarkin said:

Great work! Looks tedious but necessary.

Click to expand...

Thanks John!

It's actually very satisfying to be breathing some life into this old frame, and it doesn't hurt that its the Friday night beer project right now

gv

gregv how is your nonpareil bike coming along? I also have same bike and need
more info. paint scheme,correct seat,this bike came from southern ill. can show
pictures cosmic flyer

hey Cosmic Flyer

sorry for the delayed response....

just getting this project going again after a long hibernation. Have been acquiring parts, so far have a pre-war set of drop-center rims with "black-out" ND hubs front & rear (with a non-skiptooth cog...), Schwinn middleweight forks (to have the top tube shortened), dog-leg crank w/teardrop sprocket, a stem off a Goodyear Marathon, a headset off of a pre-war Cleveland Welding bike, and am looking for a kickstand (see separate thread) and some bars. Thinking about running cork or period black grips, and a brown leather seat (either custom covered with baseball stitching or a Brooks). No fenders or racks planned at this point, blackwall tires, and I have a chainguard similar to those I've seen on other M&S bikes. Presently planning on a paint finish of overall RLM 02 with black powdercoated rims, with the rest of the metal parts to be treated with the black-oxide kit I bought with a smattering of zinc-plated hardware etc. here and there. Here's a reference shot of the color combo, as seen on Peter Holloway's Fi 156 Storch:

http://www.airliners.net/photo/Fies...74710/L/&sid=14d13855acd4762729ab4512de97c91c

http://www.airliners.net/photo/Fies...19258/L/&sid=14d13855acd4762729ab4512de97c91c

Please note that this is as a reference for color combos only, not some weird neo-Nazi tribute thing....I just like the period feel of the RLM 02 color coupled with the black details.

I've been saving pictures of about every single Manton & Smith that come up on ebay etc. and have amassed pics of quite a few examples for use as reference; I'd be more than happy to email them to you in a week or so when I get back to my main computer.

Here's a recent ebay Nonpareil that I believe is a very good example of what my bike more than likely looked like when new; note that this example has the earlier style of rear drop-outs though, and dig the rear rack!:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...1yBfpc4%3D&viewitem=&sspagename=STRK:MEWAX:IT

Any pics of your bike?

cheers

greg v.

Manton smith bicycle just went up on ebay today. Might be good for parts.

thanks for the heads up! You talking about this one?:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Manton-Smith-19...645?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4aa714849d

Nice bike, although I don't think that is the correct headbadge for it; also odd that it doesn't have the locking fork...

At any rate, that's a nice bike that deserves to be kept together, and I have almost all the parts I need; plus the price looks pretty steep!

thanks again

greg v.

Finished the frame work this past Friday! Besides the crushed chain stays, one of the rear dropouts was down about 1/2" compared to the other side, both dropouts were bent 3/4" to the right side, the hub spacing had to be increased by about 1 1/2", and finally the neck tube was about 3/16" off-line from the seat mast. As my welder/fabricator friend put it, "bottom of the scrap pile laddy".....


Got it home, cleaned it up with some thinners and a rag, then thrashed for 5 hours getting it dry-built; I wanted to actually ride it to make sure it was straight etc., and make sure all the different parts I'd accumulated actually worked together. I "borrowed" the handlebars, wheels & chain from my S2-equipped '67 Schwinn Typhoon, threw on some new 26" x 2.125" Duro brickwalls (great tires btw), added a seat from the stash and went riding.... it rides great! This is my first non-Schwinn bike, and my first of this era; it definitely rides different, as the bb is about 1" higher than on a Schwinn middleweight, and as well the 48 tooth sprocket takes a bit more oomph to get going.



Going to ride it for a few more days then take it apart for media blasting and finishing.

cheers

greg v.