I have been doing some tidying up on my Carlton.
I thought I would start on the rear seat stays which had some chips and rust spots on them . I thought that I would keep it fairly simple and just do some localised repairs. ( Blow ins ).
It started of in the normal way by sanding down the paint. What looked like fairly innocuous rust spots were much worse than I imagined. The rust had crept underneath the paint and was breaking out in other places. Some of the areas would if left untreated could form pin holes. I was trying to keep the repairs to just the stays. Other parts of the frame could be tackled sometime later.
One limiting factor was the crank and chain rings. I discovered that my removing tool is too small. The crank is an old Stronglight with a larger size threaded hole.
I will have to try to make a puller.
Once I had rubbed down the rusty areas I treated the rust with some rust removing gel . After I had let it work for a while I scrubbed the treated areas with an old toothbrush to get at the rust. I then washed off the gel with water, dried it with a chamois and then applied some phosphoric acid and let that work for a while before washing that off with water and dried with a chamois.
I masked out the frame and sprayed on some aerosol self etching primer followed by several coats of aerosol white. The white was very thin and didn't want to cover very well.
I will tackle other areas on the frame at a later date.
The rear stays look much better now without all those unsightly rusty chips.
