I recently acquired and restored this lovely 80's Mercian. Everything was fine and the bike is for the most part in fantastic condition with very little rust or damage.
When I was out on my first ride after restoring I noticed what looks like cracks where the top tube meets the lugs at either end, particularly on the underside. I wasn't sure if this was just the paint cracking (I've heard the Flamboyant colours can be particularly brittle) or something more serious.
It does seem like the lug lining has been scraped away in these areas where all other lugs to tube connections have white lining. I guess this has been done to inspect for any damage. I should have probably noticed this sooner, but hey ho, this is where I am now.
All of the other lug brazings seem completely fine to my eye, and in researching it doesn't seem like a common place to fail, but I'm not sure so wanted a second opinion. If there's any doubt I'll probably use a dremel to remove some of the paint where the lug meets the tube in order to get a better look.
Also worth mentioning I took these pictures with my phone's macro lens and it does seem to increase the contrast making it look worse than it does to the naked eye.
Thanks!
by ArrenMog
6 Comments
Looks like the top tube is separating from the lug. I don’t build frames so I don’t know
I don’t know, but I have a few steel frames and have experience with them going wrong. Were it mine, I’d tug and whack the surrounding tubes really hard looking for play and if it feels solid I’d assume it was fine. Really really unlikely for the whole tube to be pulling out which is the only thing I can imagine would cause that look, if not just paint peel.
I have nothing to offer here except appreciation for that absolutely stunning machine
Looking at the seat tube (final pic), that lug has a white accent on it. I suspect the top tube also had white accent at the joints, and maybe that paint chipped away, revealing an imperfect base layer. If the accents are repeated on the other lugs, maybe all you need to do is retouch with white.
Even if that’s not the case, my non-expert opinion is that the red paint is just cracked and receding. Top tube is mainly under compression, so there’s no load to pull it out of the lugs. It would be highly unusual for any tube to pull out of the lugs, but if anything the down tube would be the one under tension. I also think I see a white accent on the downtube lug?
It’s an incredibly cool bike!
Your best bet is to keep riding it until the frame fails. Judging from your pics it looks like the paint is starting to dry out from all those white hairline cracks. A crack would be black.
That absolutely looks like paint damage.
To second this, frames don’t really fail like that….