Rust Treatment

I applied the rust treatment to the front mudguard. It has turned the thing black! But that's what it says to expect on the bottle, so I'm happy with it. Already it's looking more like flat metal instead of a collection of dirt. See the difference it's made in the colour and the smoothness after the many sandings? It's going to look brilliant when it's done!

Front Fender

I have started the mightly Audrey clean-up. First to get the once over is the front fender, or mudguard to us europeans. It was easy to take off - a nut on either side of the front wheel and a nut on the frame just above the top of the wheel were holding it in place. As you can see, it is brown with the rust. See in the second picture the rust is actually lumpy like barnacles? Madness. I took it off a few days ago and rubbed it with some pretty harsh sandpaper. So much rust came off! It was all over the floor. Then I washed it with a hose and let it dry. Then i sanded it again and washed it with Mr Muscle bathroom cleaner. Amazing! It's no longer brown but it is black in patches and slightly pock-marked. This evening I plan on painting it with a kind of rust-killing liquid. I'll get a photo of the pack to put up. It claims to kind of melt rust and harden it so it's strong like metal, but it turns the surface black. This is fine for most of the bike as it will then be painted over, but i'm going to have to come up with some better idea for the shiny metal parts. More to report later. Oh, loads of cobwebs and dead crap fell off the frame which had been wedged in by the mudguard. Gross. And i noticed a nice big spider hiding under the saddle too. Eek.

The Crack

This is the great almighty crack in the Tate Modern. I hear it's gone now, this picture was taken a good while back. The green flamboyant shoes are Hugh's and the more normal shoes belong to one Mr John Hearne. The crack is a massive crack, surprise surprise, which has been cut into the floor of the turbine room of the Tate Modern art gallery. It's really long and stretches the length of the room. It's quite deep in parts, i'd say around 3 or 4 feet. There's great mystery around how it was constructed, there were massive curtains hung around the turbine room so noone could see. The building is 5 floors high and the turbine room stretches up to the top on around 1/3 of the building. I'm not sure how they could have driven the crack in without disturbing the foundations, so chances are the Tate is a ticking time bomb at the moment.

The previous installation in the turbine room was the slides, which were, surprise surprise, 3 big slides. One of the walls of the turbine room is glass and looks into each of the 5 floors. On the 1st, 3rd and 5th I think, they started yellow slides which curved down to the turbine floor. It was very funny to see people shooting down them and you could hear them yeeping as they went, but I much prefer the crack. Loads more people can enjoy it at the same time. The second photo shows loads of people milling around a fork in the crack. Hundreds of people were in the room strolling around, pretending to fall in, seeing how far they could get their arms and legs in, etc. It's brilliant!

Audrey arrives!

So this is my new old bike. She answers to the name "Audrey Hepburn"and she is one demanding lady. She has some absolutely beautiful features though. Primarily amongst them some pretty well established rust and a desire to shed spokes like there's no tomorrow. This is the current view that a rider would behold if she were willing to be cycled:


Not so pretty with the rust, but totally enchanting if it's actually in front of you. This is what she looks like from the front.


The brakes are 2 long bars, shaped very like the handle bars, but a little bit lower. They are very comfortable to hold. The rear one is actually working! The handlebars themselves are very curved so you hold them like you would hold say the arms of a hedge clippers. They are remarkably comfortable and will be really handy for fitting on the inside of cars and busses.

My plan is to take her apart piece by piece and de-rust and clean everything thoroughly. I'll replace any parts that are beyond repair but fix up as much as i can. I'm really looking forward to tackling the rear hub - it's an internal 3 gear system which are reputedly foolish to take apart. Nice one! When everything is clean, possibly repainted and varnished etc i'll put her back together and hope for a miracle.

Old bike anyone?

This is a circa 1920s bike that I'm thinking of buying and fixing up. It's in fairly rag order, but the bits that are most important are still sound. The wheels (possibly including rims) and chain will definitely need replacing, but that is necessary in a lot newer bikes than this one! Look at the brake system, it's amazing! They are called rod brakes, and it's still possible to get brake blocks and everything for them. The bike is in Watford, which is around an hour out of London, but they claim that the wheels still turn, so i reckon I can get it back to the flat for some extensive surgery.

I'll keep ye posted! All that's needed now is a good name for it...

Margaret