73 Raleigh International 650b conversion

[Mark Guglielmana]

A few years ago I made my first post on this forum. I was asking about converting/building up a 73 Raleigh International frame I had purchased to 650b. One thing led to another, and I ended up with a Peter Weigle "reimagined" Raleigh Competition of the same vintage. I love looking at and riding this bike, it got me hooked on low trail/650b/fat tires. The International was built up as a 700c "modernized english gentleman's" bike

Weigle'ized Competition

700c version of my International

An 8 day credit card tour wrapped around 2 days in Cle Elum with the Bicycle Quarterly gang made me even more convinced of this style of bike's versatility. The one thing I worried about when riding it offroad was damaging the beautiful wet paint job. Also, there are no provisions for generator lighting. I could just tie wrap a bunch of wiring to the frame, but that would just look ugly. 

In it's current build, the International just doesn't get ridden. It doesn't descend well, the toe clip overlap is huge, and I'm limited to 33-35mm tire width with fenders. I've built up my tools and skills working on a few other bikes for my daughters, a friend, and a couple of lower end conversions. Why not do a DIY conversion of the International?

I tend to spend more time at the bikeforums.net C&V forum, so I'm posting the process on a thread over there.

[rcnute]

Nice rigs.  Don't do anything to the frame of the International, it's too nice and they ain't making any more of them.

Ryan

[Greg Achtem]

Looks like a fun project and I'd like to follow it and live vicariously. Let us know from time to time here when you've updated. 

You're not messing around with your tools!

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[Brad]

I suspect that as soon as you acquire a set of Mafac Raid brakes, your project will move along with dispatch.

[Mark Guglielmana]

Too late! The forks have been reraked, the torch is out, canti posts are attached. 

This isn't Greg LeMond's 89 time trial bike, not even close to being a museum piece. I built up this frame and rode it for a couple of years, haven't touched it in 9 months. I'm trying to emulate (as best as possible) the ride of my JP Weigle'd Competition, but add internal wiring for lights and powder coat it. That way I can have a crappy weather, dirt/gravel road bike when I want to ride somewhere that the Competition might get scratched. I've got too much money into the paint job on the Comp!

[Mark Guglielmana]

Brad, I have a set (actually 2), and contemplated using them on this bike. Two things stopped me, though. I want to "practice" on a frame that is less "important" to me, as you're probably aware, alignment is much more critical on centerpull post than canti's. The other thing is the fork crown is chromed, and I want to keep it that way - I plan to mask all of the chrome bits to keep it recognizable as an International. 

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Mark Guglielmana

[Mark Guglielmana]

Update:

Extinguished the torch, put away the flux and rod, it's now off to the powder coater.

Some pics of progress to date:

Reraked the forks,

Brazed on some canti studs,

Pump pegs,

New fender/rack bridge,

Cable guides,

shifter bosses,

Bottle bosses,

fork cable guides and low rider mounts,

chainstay fender boss and reinforced hole for internal rear light wiring and I'm done with this stage.

The local powder coater always says a week or two, it's always three or four. They do good work for $110, I masked the chrome myself with Kapton hi temp tape. Those damn Nervex lugs have lots of curves, which makes them great to look at, but also hard to mask. I went through 9 razor knife blades trimming them. The front fork lost the long stockings, kinda mid-length chrome now after the low riders went on, but that'll do. 

When I get it back I plan to make stainless custom racks, then build it up with a blend of vintage and new parts. While I'm waiting I'll build up the wheels. I have a set of 32 hole Pacenti SL23's on order. Haven't made up my mind about tires yet. I've got a set of Hetres on one bike and really like them, feeling like I should try something new.

[Kieran Joyes]

Cool stuff!

What's the colour going to be, Mark?

KJ

[Mark Guglielmana]

I have a guessing contest at another site, don't wavy to give it away here! What's your vote?

[Kieran Joyes]

Don't ask me - I'm having enough trouble choosing a colour scheme of my own for an upcoming bike :-) 

Where's the guessing contest going down?

KJ

[Mark Guglielmana]

Be the first to vote!

http://www.bikeforums.net/classic-vintage/1034063-73-raleigh-international-650b-convesion.html

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Mark Guglielmana

[Mark Bulgier]

Cool stuff Mark!

I don't understand the re-raking photo, can you describe your tooling/method?

Are you a framebuilder, or borrowing a framebuilder's shop in the photos there? That cantilever jig looks pretty industrial. Anvil brand?

Results certainly look professional -- very clean brazing, cool curved bridge etc.

Mark Bulgier
Seattle

[Steve Chan]

On Mon, Oct 19, 2015 at 8:59 AM, Mark Bulgier <bulg...@gmail.com> wrote:

Are you a framebuilder, or borrowing a framebuilder's shop in the photos there? That cantilever jig looks pretty industrial. Anvil brand?

Results certainly look professional -- very clean brazing, cool curved bridge etc.

   Yeah, I was thinking that this is pretty far from your typical home hobbyist guy!

   Can't wait to see the final product. I'm very curious how the powercoating with chrome lugs is going to come out.

   Steve

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"Sow a thought, reap an action. Sow an action, reap a habit. Sow a habit, reap a character. Sow a character, reap a destiny." - Samuel Smiles

[Daniel]

I like the curved bridge, too. Is the plan to mount some full coverage metal fenders?

How did the chrome on the fork do with the re-raking?

Nice work!

Daniel

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[Mark Guglielmana]

All, 

Thanks for the compliments! It's like the old standby answer when asked how to get to Carnegie Hall - practice, practice, practice! I started with simple stuff - cable guides and bottle bosses, mostly. I scorched most of those early ones with over-heating. Learning different brazing materials was helpful. Building up a fillet of brass takes practice. I went through 4 sets of canti bosses on an old fork before I felt confident to do it on a "real" one.

Mark, 

The fork re-raker story is told here at my flickr account. I've seen a local framebuilder use his jig, contemplated buying the Hammil tool from Nova Cycle, but wanted tighter than an 8" radius. I found this drawing online, modified it to my needs, and used a baseball bat for the lever arm. I call it "The Babe Ruth of Fork Rerakers". I have a DIY woodworking background, so making a template, routing the 45 degree chamfers, making my own "pulleys", etc. was easy enough. The jig is an Anvil B. B. G. I had purchased a Nova boss jig, but wasn't happy with it. I felt I could have gotten the same results from some home made jig. From what I can tell and others have told me is the Anvil stuff is top shelf. I have ambitions to move this from a hobby to a part-time business and, eventually, post-retirement gig to keep me busy, so investing in good tools makes sense to me.

And that's my shop. I'm one of those guys that sold his house in California and moved to Portland and was amazed to see what my cashed-in inequity could buy, and made sure I had lots of space to work in. Now I can use all of the tools I've been collecting over the years, and added more.

In the 80's I worked at a few bike shops in the SF Bay Area, managed one in Berkeley, and had some good teachers. I learned how to build wheels, straighten frames and forks, face, chase, and install all the bearings, etc. I became a sales rep after that for 3 years before going back to school to complete my mechanical engineering degree. Work, marriage and kids got me away from bikes until the past few years. I like working on vintage steel - mostly because I know how!

I'm not a framebuilder (yet), plan on taking the UBI course sometime in the next few years if my wife will let me burn 2 weeks of vacation that don't include her.

Steve,

I masked the chrome lugs and frame/fork socks myself. I have access to discarded short rolls of Kapton tape from work (high temp, silicon adhesive based) that I used on another project with success. I went through 9 X-Acto blades to cut around those intricate curves on the Nervex lugs!

Daniel,

The curved fender bridge has been a constant evolution for me. I put together a Flickr album to explain the process. Outside of putting them into the exact right place, it's a lot easier than I thought it would be.

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Mark Guglielmana

[Mark Guglielmana]

BTW, chrome came out on the forks. I'd like to do some analysis on just how much the surface "stretches" when you do this. One should be able to predict how much the chrome stretches using FEA. I don't think I'll ever get around to doing that, however. I wanted the rerake more than the chrome, so my backup plan was just to paint down to the fork tips.

[Mark Guglielmana]

UPDATE!

Lots have happened since last posting here. 

Powder coat was done - douglas fir green, if you're wondering

Wheels built - 650b 32 hole Pacenti SL23 laced to a Compass Gran Bois large flange cassette hub with 14-15Ga Sapim spokes, SON wide body generator hub in the front, Gran Bois Hetre tires in red

Vintage drivetrain - Stronglight 49 rebuilt as compact double, SunTour first gen Cyclone GT rear, Cyclone MkII front with SunTour Command shifters, Welgo SPD pedals

VO Grand Cru Long Setback MkII seatpost and antique brown Brooks B17 saddle

Nitto 45cm B115 handlebars on a Technics tall stem

MAFAC/ACS cantilevers with Origin Classique aero levers

Vintage Lefol "Le Martele" fenders with VO alloy stays

B&M lighting in the front with Velo Lumino fender adapter, Velo Lumino standlight in the rear, internal wiring to the rear.

I made the front and rear racks out of thinwall stainless steel tubing and braze-on bits using mostly Harris 50 silver wire.

More pics to come. I'm 99% finished, need to make a decaleur and tape the bars.

[David Cummings]

Nice work, Gugie!

Great minds think alike - I'm on the hunt for some Cyclone derailleurs myself and have a TA specialties crank ready to go for my near-future "sport touring" Trek 710. I just Frenched in some simplex Retrofrictions into Shimano bar end pods and have a demultiplicator ready to put in line with the rear shift cable.

Can't wait to see more of the custom racks!

David
Montana

[Peter Adler]

The general consensus on the CR group is that the Simplex demultiplicator is a solution desperately seeking a problem, and it doesn't do anything with non-Simplex RDs anyway.

But hey: I'm very enthused that the Simplex retrofriction DTs-on-Shimano pods trick works, as I've aspired to try the same thing myself. I have two left levers of the later loop-style (bought at the last Rivendell sale as a set, in a sealed bag; guess that explains why they'd been hanging around). If anyone has a spare right lever, or a right lever they'd like to trade for a left, drop me a line.

Peter "for some reason, shifterless barcon pods are pretty easy to find" Adler

Berkeley, CA/USA

[David Cummings]

I'll be sure to report back when I get it all set up with cyclone derailleurs. I know that Retrofrictions have a long throw which is not an issue for DT shifting but not ideal for bar ends. I now have three sets, all the late model you described. Super sexy and great feel when shifting.

David
Montana

[Evan Estern]

I installed a NOS Cyclone ll FD on my Stag and it has been working flawlessly.  Looks great too!

[Mark Guglielmana]

That's my "go to" front derailer. Not much it won't work on.

On Dec 10, 2015 7:40 AM, "Evan Estern" <e.es...@me.com> wrote:

I installed a NOS Cyclone ll FD on my Stag and it has been working flawlessly.  Looks great too!

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[WETH]

Mark,

That is a stunning bike!  Thanks for all the photos and details.  Enjoy the ride.

Erl

[Nick Favicchio]

Looking forward to seeing this thing in person!!

So much radness. Do you have a Flickr album for this whole project? And hold that camera still! :)