Vintage Falcon road bikes

[SkipdiverJohn]

Must admit I did bid but not enough

Probably the most sensible thing to do. I don't actually think the finish price was super-cheap for a bare frame. I'm well aware it's only a fraction of the price of a new build custom frame, but by the time you've added all the mechanical bits and consumables needed to complete a build, the cost is going to be significantly higher than just buying a complete project bike. There's a reason for the quantity of bare frames on the secondhand market; they are the leftovers from the donors that have had all their mechanicals harvested off them. Despite being the single most expensive part of a quality bike, they attract minimal demand unless of exotic racing origin.

 

[Mandobob]

So, to start another aspect, I have recently acquired an old Falcon frame. It is important to me because the badge shows it to be made by Roberts Cycle Industries who only owned Falcon from 1956 to 1957, so this must be from the first year of Falcon production.
The seat tube will take a 26.6mm seat post which implies plain gauge 531, so I am thinking towards it being a Special or Club Special. It has been brush painted in a rather thick black paint which has at least prevented the dreaded rust from gaining hold. Lovely Nervex lugs too.
I don't know what the fork crown is. Can anyone help?
I now have a 2021 project to start to tackle!

 

[Paulus]

So, to start another aspect, I have recently acquired an old Falcon frame. It is important to me because the badge shows it to be made by Roberts Cycle Industries who only owned Falcon from 1956 to 1957, so this must be from the first year of Falcon production.
The seat tube will take a 26.6mm seat post which implies plain gauge 531, so I am thinking towards it being a Special or Club Special. It has been brush painted in a rather thick black paint which has at least prevented the dreaded rust from gaining hold. Lovely Nervex lugs too.
I don't know what the fork crown is. Can anyone help?
I now have a 2021 project to start to tackle!

That's a nice project you have there. It'll take a while to strip all that paint off. though. Good luck.

 

[Illaveago]

So, to start another aspect, I have recently acquired an old Falcon frame. It is important to me because the badge shows it to be made by Roberts Cycle Industries who only owned Falcon from 1956 to 1957, so this must be from the first year of Falcon production.
The seat tube will take a 26.6mm seat post which implies plain gauge 531, so I am thinking towards it being a Special or Club Special. It has been brush painted in a rather thick black paint which has at least prevented the dreaded rust from gaining hold. Lovely Nervex lugs too.
I don't know what the fork crown is. Can anyone help?
I now have a 2021 project to start to tackle!

I had noticed that one for sale and thought the badge was old . It's good as we can see it progress.
Try some cellulose thinners and an old toothbrush to try to remove the lovely black paint finish .
You might be lucky and find some remnants of some transfers .

 

[Illaveago]

So, to start another aspect, I have recently acquired an old Falcon frame. It is important to me because the badge shows it to be made by Roberts Cycle Industries who only owned Falcon from 1956 to 1957, so this must be from the first year of Falcon production.
The seat tube will take a 26.6mm seat post which implies plain gauge 531, so I am thinking towards it being a Special or Club Special. It has been brush painted in a rather thick black paint which has at least prevented the dreaded rust from gaining hold. Lovely Nervex lugs too.
I don't know what the fork crown is. Can anyone help?
I now have a 2021 project to start to tackle!

Take a look at the Flying Scot home page . I find that there is a lot of useful information on there. There are some fork crowns from the 50's which look similar .

 

[midlife]

It was usually Vagner fork crowns that had the raised triangle on top (others did too) but looks like someone has filed a notch into the point?

 

[avecReynolds531]

Lovely project there. With the Falcon having Nervex bottom bracket & lugs - it's likely it may be a Nervex fork crown too.

Here are some Nervex & Vagner fork crown drawings from catalogues - and a photo of a Liddell frame with a chromed fork crown (said to be Nervex type) that looks a bit like the Falcon.


View: https://www.flickr.com/photos/makfreak/2653554484/in/set-72157606071900008
/

I had a similar search re fork crown info for this frame below.

All the best with the project.

 

[avecReynolds531]

...forgot to include the link to Classic Lightweights page on Nervex - with interesting information on the fork crown design & popularity: https://www.classiclightweights.co.uk/classic_builders/nervex-professional-lugs/

 

[Mandobob]

I had noticed that one for sale and thought the badge was old . It's good as we can see it progress.
Try some cellulose thinners and an old toothbrush to try to remove the lovely black paint finish .
You might be lucky and find some remnants of some transfers .

Thanks for that tip. I have been out this morning to pick up some thinners and will try it out. There is red paint underneath but whether that is original and whether there are signs of old decals is still to be determined!

 

[Mandobob]

View attachment 566910
Lovely project there. With the Falcon having Nervex bottom bracket & lugs - it's likely it may be a Nervex fork crown too.

Here are some Nervex & Vagner fork crown drawings from catalogues - and a photo of a Liddell frame with a chromed fork crown (said to be Nervex type) that looks a bit like the Falcon.


View: https://www.flickr.com/photos/makfreak/2653554484/in/set-72157606071900008
/ View attachment 566912
I had a similar search re fork crown info for this frame below.
View attachment 566914
All the best with the project.

Thanks for all that info. It's great. The Liddell frame almost has it and the green frame is even closer. I have not found a Nervex to match yet so I need to research Vagner some more. Of course, in their early days Falcon used to specially file some of their lugs to be completely unique!

 

[Mandobob]

Have now made a start with the cellulose thinners on a rag, especially in the places where I would expect transfers to be. It seems to show no residual transfers at all. The red paint underneath is quite worn and incomplete and also seems to have covered the original head tube badge at some stage. That maybe suggests that the red was an early repaint?

The 1956 catalogue shows seat tube decoration but no Falcon name other than on the head tube badge! By 1959 there is a Falcon name on the down tube, but in a slightly different format to the common one. It is a bit like the attached picture but has one or two roundels at each end rather than the three lines shown in the picture.

I am awaiting some feedback from someone with knowledge of early machines before I can decide how to proceed, but any advice is very welcome.

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

I'd just keep scrubbing and rubbing away with the thinners and see what reveals itself. The paint is horrid as it is, so you have nothing to lose. Either you are going to find decals at some stage or you'll get to bare metal and find nothing. At least the thinners method is less destructive than blasting or paint stripping and you won't destroy anything interesting without seeing it first..

 

[Mandobob]

Thanks SkipdiverJohn for that advice. I have done just that today and have also carefully removed the head tube badge to reveal - the original factory colour which is copper! There are two pictures, one closely showing the area behind the badge and another showing the contrast between the red under the black and the copper. As I suspected, the red was not the original colour!

 

[Mandobob]

Are you sure it's a Falcon-built Falcon? Those seatstays look suspiciously like something built by Carlton to me! I wonder if they indulged in badge-engineering mischief and bought in some of their frames from other makers?

I would be pretty sure it is a real Falcon. This frame became a core part of their upper-middle range, being made with 531 plain gauge and the seat tube cluster like this one. Into the seventies it featured as an Olympic, a San Remo model 80 and a Super Tourist. Different kit on each to suit different markets. Olympics appear to have been made in quite large numbers.

 

[midlife]

The wrap round seat cluster used to be used on higher end frames way back as it was light and strong. Carlton / Falcon seemed to crack the method of using them for mass production, particularly Carlton.