1988 Raleigh 531st Tourer-Resprays or not?

[fausto99]

Interesting. Which Owatrol product is that? Owatrol Oil?

yes.

FWIW the trial size (£5 for about 100ml) is more than enough to treat the rust spots on a bike frame.

Ordered. Will try it out in an inconspicuous part on my Dad's 1930s Mercier 531 steel framed bike. I decided not to get it re-finished as it would change the look too much and no-one seems to know what decals would be right for that era.

Thanks.

[hoogerbooger]

I shall try Owatrol too in due course, but probably not until late spring.

Does it turn the rust black or blue black ?

I have filiform rust on parts of my dark gunmetal grey randonneur. So I may try picking/pressing off the paint over the filliform runs and using a tooth pick to treat them.

I've done some bits like this with kurust, but it discolours the good paint a bit too much.

[Brucey]

Does it turn the rust black or blue black ?

it just darkens the colour slightly, so still rust coloured, but darker. The Owatrol doesn't seem to exert a strong chemical change in the rust; it just soaks into it (much as any other oil will I suppose) but it then cures to act as a gas/water barrier, thus stifling further corrosion to a great extent.

With filiform corrosion (or other where the paint has started to lift slightly) it may be sufficient to simply pierce the paint at intervals and then introduce owatrol through these holes; it will 'wick' to some extent, and again may greatly slow the progress of further such corrosion.

I would imagine that some experimentation may show if wicking occurs reliably or not, eg. you could pierce the paint, then make a 'funnel' (eg from plasticine?) and leave a puddle of owatrol to work its way through the filiform. Subsequent more invasive examination will show if the owatrol has penetrated very far or not.

cheers

[obsidian]

First I must declare an interest. I have one of these frames. The number is 8900530 with possibly a 6 or 9 stamped above it at an angle. I can see no letters anywhere. It also has the Randonneur spoke holders on the drive side chainstay - was this an option or a special order? I would be delighted if anyone has any info to add.
The frame is handmade in the full 531ST DB tubeset. There is nothing to support the notion that it was given a cheap paint job or was a way of using up excess frames. Raleigh offered a full range of frames with 880X numbers for cyclists who wished to build a quality frame with their own choice of components. It rides very well. The Randonneur, from which the 8807 is derived, was Raleighs top model and is still considered to be an excellent touring bike. If the OP's frame is in good condition it merits a decent paintjob.

[hoogerbooger]

Your frame number format seems strange. My randonneur starts WA9 ...So Jan 1989 made in Worksop.
Maybe someone clever will explain your format

On the 'merits a decent paint job' I'm wondering if current enamelling or powder coat are really a decent paint job. They may look pretty for a while but there seem to be lots of comments about proneness to chipping with current paint options.

I am also interested if a frame has an electrophoretic coating and is essentially sound and rust hasn't made inroads.........would shotblasting and stove baking not remove existing rustproofing benefit.

Hence my earlier comments........if only localised rust, just fix that.

Obviously if one is just keen on a pretty looking bike and has plenty of cash...why not repaint......but I'm more concerned about making a good frame last.

[pwa]

Your frame number format seems strange. My randonneur starts WA9 ...So Jan 1989 made in Worksop.
Maybe someone clever will explain your format

On the 'merits a decent paint job' I'm wondering if current enamelling or powder coat are really a decent paint job. They may look pretty for a while but there seem to be lots of comments about proneness to chipping with current paint options.

I am also interested if a frame has an electrophoretic coating and is essentially sound and rust hasn't made inroads.........would shotblasting and stove baking not remove existing rustproofing benefit.

Hence my earlier comments........if only localised rust, just fix that.

Obviously if one is just keen on a pretty looking bike and has plenty of cash...why not repaint......but I'm more concerned about making a good frame last.

I agree. I don't think modern paint jobs last as well as the old ones used to. I've had an expensive Argos Racing Cycles paint job show rust after 18 months of careful use, on two occasions. Both times it looked great when new. The experience turned me off steel completely. I'd be very reluctant to remove an old paint job that has done a pretty good job of keeping rust at bay for thirty odd years. Whatever replaces it won't be as tough.

[slowster]

There is nothing to support the notion that it was given a cheap paint job

It is glaringly apparent just from a cursory glance. Compare it side by side with the paint on a Royal or Randonneur and it is impossible to ignore.

It also has the Randonneur spoke holders on the drive side chainstay - was this an option or a special order?

Not in the adverts that I saw. The frames were very competitively priced and that, combined with the fact that Raleigh were placing adverts specifically for that frame in the cycling press, suggests that they had a lot of them/a lot of excess production capacity. I never saw any similar adverts for any of the other frames from that frame only catalogue linked above, only the 8807.

There is nothing to support the notion that it...was a way of using up excess frames.

See your own comment above. The Type 8807 sold well enough that there was no need to increase costs/reduce profit by adding the chainstay holder. Your frame was probably one of a batch originally destined to be built up as a Randonneur, but which was instead given the 8807 paint job and sold as a bare frame. The most likely explanation for that was that Raleigh did not have enough orders for complete Randonneur bikes, or possibly that there was a temporary shortage of some of the components used in the complete bike.

The flexibility of being able to switch the frames from Randonneur to Royal, or from Randonneur or Royal to 8807, just by leaving off the spoke holder and/or giving the frame a different paint job, would have made good business sense. Giving the 8807 a much less attractive and inferior bronze/champagne fade paint maintained the distinction between it and the complete bikes, and stopped the low price of the 8807 undermining the sales of the premium price complete bikes.

As for the respray question, I agree that if there is no surface rust, then it would be foolish to strip the existing paint (which would include the electrophoretic paint coat), which is clearly doing its job.

[AndyA]

Your frame number format seems strange. My randonneur starts WA9 ...So Jan 1989 made in Worksop.
Maybe someone clever will explain your format

On the 'merits a decent paint job' I'm wondering if current enamelling or powder coat are really a decent paint job. They may look pretty for a while but there seem to be lots of comments about proneness to chipping with current paint options.

I am also interested if a frame has an electrophoretic coating and is essentially sound and rust hasn't made inroads.........would shotblasting and stove baking not remove existing rustproofing benefit.

Hence my earlier comments........if only localised rust, just fix that.

Obviously if one is just keen on a pretty looking bike and has plenty of cash...why not repaint......but I'm more concerned about making a good frame last.

It depends largely on how the frame is prepared for painting. Some painters dip the frame in a tank of solvent, or acid, to remove most of the old paint. This will partially remove electrophoretic coating and damage what's left. Some painters remove the old paint with heat, this will probably also damage any internal treatment (Bob Jackson's old website mentioned this practice....). Sometimes paint comes off very easily in a sandblaster, and almost all painters would use a sandblaster to prep the surface and remove lingering bits of paint. But if the old paint is too tough to blast easily and you don't want to disturb internal treatment, then you'd be as well using Nitromors style stripper on the frame (Langlow Strip Away Pro works as well as Nitromors used to, before they reduced the dichloromethane to "safe" but useless levels). Then sandblast to remove the last of the paint, any rust and key the surface.

As for resprays going rusty in a short period of time, once steel has started rusting and begun pitting you can't really stop it unless you get rid of all of the rust. Even with a sandblaster this is impossible - the rust remains at the bottom of the pits that are too small for the grit to get into. Any rusty frame that's been resprayed is going to need resprayed again 5-10 years later, and it's going to start rusting in exactly the same places again

[pwa]

At one time those frames were selling like hot cakes, according to the bike shop proprietor who couldn't get one for me. Those were the days! A British product with demand outstripping supply. I liked the colour scheme. Instead I ended up with a boring red and white frame made by some bloke who had previously made frames for Viking.

[hoogerbooger]

If the paint is sound but a bit faded or lightly marked or scuffed, t-cut or autoglyn super resin polish can bring back a better colour and even out . I used autoglym then waxed......but if the whole frame was sound on the rust front I would be tempted to add some clear coat

[Brucey]

Your frame number format seems strange. My randonneur starts WA9 ...So Jan 1989 made in Worksop.
Maybe someone clever will explain your format....

according to sources I trust, 'W' means worksop prior to a certain date, but 'Nottingham' after that. Yours is after that date, so it will have been made in Nottingham. The Worksop plant (home of carlton cycles for many years) closed in 1981; there were no frames being built in Worksop in 1989.

Re the 8900*** frame number format; I would speculate that internal to Raleigh, lightweight frames made in 1988 and 1989 would have had model codes still ( possibly similar to the 1987 catalogue)

http://www.retrobike.co.uk/gallery2/v/Manufacturer+Archive/Raleigh/Catalogues/lw87/

http://www.retrobike.co.uk/gallery2/d/104192-2/Raleigh+Lightweights+1989.pdf

even if the codes didn't appear in the catalogue per se (not a very sexy way of identifying models, a four digit number!). So it is possible that frame numbers were assigned accordingly in that period, rather than using the older frame numbering system. I would have been a time of considerable change for Raleigh; DynaTech frames were to come out the following year and RSP frames all got a new style frame number (beginning with a letter prefix which denotes the year) starting in 1990 or 1991. So if such a convention was used, it might only have been for a couple of years.

cheers