A congregation of Carltons

Goldie

Senior Retro Guru
The fond memories I have of my dad's 531 framed Carlton Corsair means I keep stumbling into ownership of these.

It was sunny enough the other day to wheel my Corsa outside for the first time:

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This is probably the nicest Carlton I've owned - it came to me with scabby wheels and a really nasty crusty cruddy bit along the bottom of the down tube and bb. I've swapped the wheels ffor some from another Corsa which is in th ellar waiting for it's moment of glory, and stripped and treated the corrosion. Just got to touch up now...

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I love the red wheeled Svelto mech, and I seem to be developing a bit of a thing for orangey bikes. They look superb in low sunshine though...
 
Really nice bike! :cool:

I'd love to see/hear how you do the rust removing part as I am about to do the same to my Gazelle!
 
Oh chuffin eck, I'm going to have that picture of Mr O'Donovan in my head now every time I take a spanner to one of his bikes. that'll keep me on the straight and narrow. :D

As far as rust removal goes, I just did exactly what I did in my phase of owning 1970's BRitish cars - wire brush, then wet and dry of increasingly fine grades until back to bare metal (or as close as you can get), then Kurust and then primer and paint on top. It is a lot easier to do this on a bike than on the wing of a Triumph 2000!
 
bikemeister2000":2arj5pju said:
I worked with Gerald for many years. He was truly one of a kind.

He was a nice guy.

met him, and some of his team when I ordered my SBDU frameset back in the day.

Ilkeston.

Roadking.
 
I've had this Carlton Grand Prix hiding in the cellar like a dirty secret for probably a couple of years now, and after some epic pretending-it's-not-there, I've finally started its rebuild. It's going to get a change of colour, and a change in graphics so that it looks a bit more mid 1970's. Here it is being stripped down:

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And here it is getting its new coat of paint:

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The colour will be a pale blue/grey metallic - a Ford colour I think - which hopefully will look close enough to the polychromatic finishes Carlton used in the mid seventies to look right, but not close enough for it to be mistaken for the original colour.

The rest of the bike is still in boxes around the cellar, and generally needs a massive clean.

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The decals arrived on Friday so it should come together quite quickly.
 
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