A new coat, just in time for winter

I took the Raleigh International frame and fork to my friends at Groody Brothers today. As the detail photos illustrate all too clearly, there’s a pretty fair amount of detail work that will need to be done to mask off the lugs and other chrome bits. I’ve masked and sprayed frames with ornate lugs myself and understand how much of a pain it is to do, so it’s hard not to be a bit apprehensive. The thing is, I know how good a job they do, so my mind is pretty much at ease.

Since discovering that the burgundy color was an early repaint and not a rare original custom spray (as I had initially been led to believe), I’m much less wary of re-coating. And since the paint is dinged up so badly, I feel that this frame deserves a new coat. Keeping the attractive (to me, anyway) burgundy is top of mind at the moment. Anyhow, I thought I’d take this opportunity to document some of the details – the “before” pictures, if you will.

I can never get enough of classy head badges – and The Raleigh is certainly an iconic one.

The chrome is in decent condition.

Quite grimy when it first arrived in the garage, but the shiny stuff has cleaned up very nicely!

More details. Cool wrap… that’s the good. Now the bad.

Or, at least, ugly. Eek!

And some more cosmetically challenged shots.

The Raleigh International from 1971. It’s a classy production frame. It came with some cool build parts. And it deserves a nice new coat.

I’ll post more later in the month when she comes back from her stay at Groody Brothers.