The Carlton Catalina Restoration Project
Steve sends this link to a site that discusses restoring old bicycles. Here’s his comment:
I was surprised you put my reconstructed decals up. Once I brought the pdf file into work, I saw it and printed it on a color printer, I knew I had more work to do. What looked like pure black on my home screen showed yellows and greens bleeding through. I have that fixed now. I’m glad I left the bottom portion of the seat tube in the photo so you could see how I’d made the 3 dimensional tube look 2 dimensional.
All this makes only limited sense without the hotlink to the more informative (but granted less inspiring) article on the Carlton restoration. His photos are impressive as well as the more detailed “how to” he provided. I’m thinking I want to make my first try on a cheaper old lugged bike (like the Raleigh Grand Prix) and then move up to a Reynolds 531 lugged frame if I enjoy the first project. (Both frames must fit me as fit is the most important part of any bicycle acquisition!) I’m still shopping for both fixer uppers though, and the days start lengthening next week which will rapidly reduce my time for this project
The Carlton Catalina Restoration Project
The Catalina Project
Steve Maas, Long Beach, California, USA
March - September, 2002
In late March of 2002, I became the owner of a Carlton Catalina touring bike, made in England in (as close as I can tell) the mid 1960s, and I promptly set about the task of restoring it. The bike was a disaster–a real rust bucket–but as I tore it down, I was astounded to see that it was largely unused and almost completely original. None of the bearings had any visible wear, and even the brake pads, gears, chain, and cable sheaths were ones that came new with the bike. The only nonoriginal part was the saddle; I assume that the original leather one died a moldy death as the bike sat decaying in a series of garages.