Maxants33
Active Member
- Location
- Manchester
Hello,
This thread is just to inform about my restoration project. I'm doing up an old Vindec Atlantic I got for £50 on gumtree. Its my main bike for daily use, I was going to replace or restore it, possibly get a trek or something, but after posting on cycle chat about it, it seemed a better idea to stick to the restoration plan.
I would be interested to hear what folks know about Vindec Atlantics, they seem quite rare, it was tough just finding vindec decals too. As far as I can tell, this is the first online record of one being restored (or warped depending on your opinion...), they seem to get good prices on the very few adds I've seen (up to £200, but its not clear if they actually sell....).
Its a beautiful bike and probably the most favored I've ever owned.
However, like a lot of vintage bikes, its got problems.
Over the past year I've added marathon plus, a new tough crank (although not period, it does look OK, I'll get a more fitting one when I've the cash), a front rack, new cables, break pads and a new seat. As well as learning to service a sturmy archer hub!
I've stripped the bike down for powder coating today:
You can see there is a lot of rust
The new decals arrived today too, these were really hard to find online. Seems only one place has them.
Coca cola and steel wool followed brasso really sorted out the less rusted chrome: (2 different pads on for a reason, but its a long story, jut not gotten round to changing it....)
I was playing about with how to colour the bike. I love the current colours, but the black front and back pannier racks I use seem to upset this a bit. I also have to get the handle bars and mud guards sprayed due to rust, but I cannot afford re-chroming (also new metal size 26 mud guards seem really rare!), so these will have to be powder coated a colour of some kind...
SO, I've gone for quite a 'bold' new color mod. I will stick to bronzy brown frame, with red details and decals, chain guard will be same shade now too + a red bar on the top surface. To get around the chrome problem, I'm making the mud guards, pannier racks, and handle bars ivory - like the seat, grips and cabling. I also plan to highlight the lug details using enamel paint and lacquer
I had a muck around on microsoft paint, this is how it could look (but less fuzzy, but maybe as amateur).
I've even sprayed my lezynes white so they match the scheme (these are permanently attached).
Tomorrow I'm off to Stockport for the powder coating!
If this turns out looking really horrific in real life, it should be OK, I'm not altering the frame much, I may have to just spend the money to find the rare new size 26 chrome mud guards an stick closer to the original colours.
I will update in few days!!!
Many thanks for reading,
Max
This thread is just to inform about my restoration project. I'm doing up an old Vindec Atlantic I got for £50 on gumtree. Its my main bike for daily use, I was going to replace or restore it, possibly get a trek or something, but after posting on cycle chat about it, it seemed a better idea to stick to the restoration plan.
I would be interested to hear what folks know about Vindec Atlantics, they seem quite rare, it was tough just finding vindec decals too. As far as I can tell, this is the first online record of one being restored (or warped depending on your opinion...), they seem to get good prices on the very few adds I've seen (up to £200, but its not clear if they actually sell....).
Its a beautiful bike and probably the most favored I've ever owned.
However, like a lot of vintage bikes, its got problems.
Over the past year I've added marathon plus, a new tough crank (although not period, it does look OK, I'll get a more fitting one when I've the cash), a front rack, new cables, break pads and a new seat. As well as learning to service a sturmy archer hub!
I've stripped the bike down for powder coating today:
You can see there is a lot of rust
The new decals arrived today too, these were really hard to find online. Seems only one place has them.
Coca cola and steel wool followed brasso really sorted out the less rusted chrome: (2 different pads on for a reason, but its a long story, jut not gotten round to changing it....)
I was playing about with how to colour the bike. I love the current colours, but the black front and back pannier racks I use seem to upset this a bit. I also have to get the handle bars and mud guards sprayed due to rust, but I cannot afford re-chroming (also new metal size 26 mud guards seem really rare!), so these will have to be powder coated a colour of some kind...
SO, I've gone for quite a 'bold' new color mod. I will stick to bronzy brown frame, with red details and decals, chain guard will be same shade now too + a red bar on the top surface. To get around the chrome problem, I'm making the mud guards, pannier racks, and handle bars ivory - like the seat, grips and cabling. I also plan to highlight the lug details using enamel paint and lacquer
I had a muck around on microsoft paint, this is how it could look (but less fuzzy, but maybe as amateur).
I've even sprayed my lezynes white so they match the scheme (these are permanently attached).
Tomorrow I'm off to Stockport for the powder coating!
If this turns out looking really horrific in real life, it should be OK, I'm not altering the frame much, I may have to just spend the money to find the rare new size 26 chrome mud guards an stick closer to the original colours.
I will update in few days!!!
Many thanks for reading,
Max
