OP
OP
Tony Smith
Active Member
- Location
- Rural Staffordshire
Steve,
I missed those pics (they've been removed) could you repeat them please ?
Tony
I missed those pics (they've been removed) could you repeat them please ?
Tony
Vintage Fothergill
- Thread starter Tony Smith
- Start date
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The pictures should be in this link.
http://s720.photobucket.com/user/stevevw100/slideshow/Fothergill
http://s720.photobucket.com/user/stevevw100/slideshow/Fothergill
rhm
Well-Known Member
I promised Tony I would post about my Fothergill, so here goes....
Several years ago Hilary Stone offered this frame:
I don't remember exactly how he described it. I believe he was a bit tentative about it, saying something like "probably from the 1940's" and "apparently by James Fothergill of Liverpool" with a link to the Classic Lightweights page on Fothergill. As you can see, someone had sanded down the horrid black paint to find traces of green paint; and someone had put the word "Fothergill" on the head tube in little stick-on letters.
After I got the frame, I carefully sanded off the black to reveal as much as possible of the green, hoping I'd find more traces of graphics; but there were none, and the green was in terrible shape as well, so I went ahead and removed all the remaining paint and sanded the steel clean. And this is where it got interesting.
Here's the head tube, all the paint gone except for where it was protected by the little stick on letters:
I didn't see it at first; but after staring at it a while I noticed that though the steel bears the deep stains of a previous attack of rust, in some places the paint preserved it better than in other places. In particular, there's a patch of shiny steel right where the head badge was, and the outline matches the known Fothergill headbadge pretty much perfectly.
To be continued....
Several years ago Hilary Stone offered this frame:
I don't remember exactly how he described it. I believe he was a bit tentative about it, saying something like "probably from the 1940's" and "apparently by James Fothergill of Liverpool" with a link to the Classic Lightweights page on Fothergill. As you can see, someone had sanded down the horrid black paint to find traces of green paint; and someone had put the word "Fothergill" on the head tube in little stick-on letters.
After I got the frame, I carefully sanded off the black to reveal as much as possible of the green, hoping I'd find more traces of graphics; but there were none, and the green was in terrible shape as well, so I went ahead and removed all the remaining paint and sanded the steel clean. And this is where it got interesting.
Here's the head tube, all the paint gone except for where it was protected by the little stick on letters:
I didn't see it at first; but after staring at it a while I noticed that though the steel bears the deep stains of a previous attack of rust, in some places the paint preserved it better than in other places. In particular, there's a patch of shiny steel right where the head badge was, and the outline matches the known Fothergill headbadge pretty much perfectly.
To be continued....
Last edited:
rhm
Well-Known Member
After staring at the bare steel for a while longer I spotted a similar pattern on the seat tube:
Perhaps you can see the same headbadge outline a little below the center of the photo; and above it, a clean rectangle exactly the size of a Reynolds 531 decal.
There were also stains on the down tube. I took lots of photos, such as this one:
Again you can see that there's a pattern of clean shiny steel, surrounded by a stained steel. What the pattern is, however... well, that's not very obvious. I assumed, of course, that it was writing; but the orientation was wrong for that. If it said "FOTHERGILL" on the right side of the frame, the F would be down toward the bottom bracket, and the LL's up by the headset; and on the left side of the frame the F would be up near the headset and the LL's down at the other end. But on my frame, the pattern was oriented the same way on both sides; fatter toward the headset, narrower at the other end. The photo shows the narrow end.
So I drew it. I also asked my daughter, who was about 11 years of age at the time, to draw it. She had no preconceived notion of what she was looking at, so I trusted her eye. We came up with basically the same thing. I can't lead you through every stage of my thought process, but I eventually realized that, like the head badge, the design was a triangle with something over it; and I eventually came up with this:
I later realized that there was a period after the J. I did not know about this thread and did not know that my headbadge was probably the earlier version that doesn't have the bicyclist in it. Satisfied that I had learned all I could learn, I painted my frame (enamel, brushed on, carefully sanded between coats...) made my own decals, and ended up with this....
27" wheels, Sturmey Archer 5 speed hub (note the bar end shifter and the trigger shifter); Williams 1200 chainset; GB Hiduminium brakes; Soma "Lauterwasser" handlebar; and so on.
To be continued....
Perhaps you can see the same headbadge outline a little below the center of the photo; and above it, a clean rectangle exactly the size of a Reynolds 531 decal.
There were also stains on the down tube. I took lots of photos, such as this one:
Again you can see that there's a pattern of clean shiny steel, surrounded by a stained steel. What the pattern is, however... well, that's not very obvious. I assumed, of course, that it was writing; but the orientation was wrong for that. If it said "FOTHERGILL" on the right side of the frame, the F would be down toward the bottom bracket, and the LL's up by the headset; and on the left side of the frame the F would be up near the headset and the LL's down at the other end. But on my frame, the pattern was oriented the same way on both sides; fatter toward the headset, narrower at the other end. The photo shows the narrow end.
So I drew it. I also asked my daughter, who was about 11 years of age at the time, to draw it. She had no preconceived notion of what she was looking at, so I trusted her eye. We came up with basically the same thing. I can't lead you through every stage of my thought process, but I eventually realized that, like the head badge, the design was a triangle with something over it; and I eventually came up with this:
I later realized that there was a period after the J. I did not know about this thread and did not know that my headbadge was probably the earlier version that doesn't have the bicyclist in it. Satisfied that I had learned all I could learn, I painted my frame (enamel, brushed on, carefully sanded between coats...) made my own decals, and ended up with this....
27" wheels, Sturmey Archer 5 speed hub (note the bar end shifter and the trigger shifter); Williams 1200 chainset; GB Hiduminium brakes; Soma "Lauterwasser" handlebar; and so on.
To be continued....
rhm
Well-Known Member
Continuing with mine...
I changed it quite a bit over time! here it is after I changed the 27" wheels to 26" (EA3) with 1939 Sturmey Archer hubs, including a MKII 12v dynohub powering a very bright LED hidden inside a Lucas lamp. I added a Resilion derailleur. I found a handlebar I liked better. I changed the shiny Bluemels Tour de France mudguards to weathered Bluemels Airweights.
About two years ago a set of Resilion cantilever brakes fell into my hands along with early Berthet pedals and a Trivelox derailleur, so I made more changes:
The Trivelox derailleur is designed for three gears, and I didn't have the correct shifter for it anyway, so I made a primitive shifter with two positions. It works fine! But the paint was not holding up well. I decided to do the paint over again. All the components came off, I scraped all the paint off, and started sanding, getting ready to put on a new coat of paint. And that's when I noticed this on the top tube:
By this time I had seen Tony's head badge, in this thread. I contacted him and he sent me copies of that decal. I also had World Cycle Decals properly reproduce the decal I had reconstructed.
I went for a different color. Since I now planned to use Resilion brakes, I filled the hole in the fork crown. And finally, I added some primitive box lining. Again, this is a home paint job, enamel applied with a brush. I took greater care with etching the steel to hold the primer, and I baked the finished frame in a black box in the sun.
Initially I built it with 700c wheels, but I soon went back to the EA3 set. I don't think the bike has changed much since I took these photos:
For some reason, I don't have any good photos of the whole bike as it stands now. I'll try to get to that soon.
I can tell you I've ridden the bike about 2200 miles over the last five years, including many rides of over 100 miles, though none over 200 km.
I changed it quite a bit over time! here it is after I changed the 27" wheels to 26" (EA3) with 1939 Sturmey Archer hubs, including a MKII 12v dynohub powering a very bright LED hidden inside a Lucas lamp. I added a Resilion derailleur. I found a handlebar I liked better. I changed the shiny Bluemels Tour de France mudguards to weathered Bluemels Airweights.
About two years ago a set of Resilion cantilever brakes fell into my hands along with early Berthet pedals and a Trivelox derailleur, so I made more changes:
The Trivelox derailleur is designed for three gears, and I didn't have the correct shifter for it anyway, so I made a primitive shifter with two positions. It works fine! But the paint was not holding up well. I decided to do the paint over again. All the components came off, I scraped all the paint off, and started sanding, getting ready to put on a new coat of paint. And that's when I noticed this on the top tube:
By this time I had seen Tony's head badge, in this thread. I contacted him and he sent me copies of that decal. I also had World Cycle Decals properly reproduce the decal I had reconstructed.
I went for a different color. Since I now planned to use Resilion brakes, I filled the hole in the fork crown. And finally, I added some primitive box lining. Again, this is a home paint job, enamel applied with a brush. I took greater care with etching the steel to hold the primer, and I baked the finished frame in a black box in the sun.
Initially I built it with 700c wheels, but I soon went back to the EA3 set. I don't think the bike has changed much since I took these photos:
For some reason, I don't have any good photos of the whole bike as it stands now. I'll try to get to that soon.
I can tell you I've ridden the bike about 2200 miles over the last five years, including many rides of over 100 miles, though none over 200 km.
ozboz
Guru
- Location
- Richmond ,Surrey
rhm
Well-Known Member
That's my reconstruction based on the stains in the preceding photo. Not perfect, but the dimensions are correct and the overall character is pretty close. I printed one on waterslide decal paper using the laser printer in my office; you can see it in the last photo.
You can get "waterslide decal paper" at craft stores and online (try eBay); run it through a laser printer or inkjet printer, spray a fixative if necessary, and apply it to the frame. For best results, clear coat over it. Simple one-color designs like this work pretty well. I would not have been able to do it in gold. Of course I don't know what the original looked like.
That's also how I made the decals you see in the early photos of my frame; but I printed them mirror image and painstakingly colored them in with enamel and a fine brush. Applying them backwards meant the black lines appear over the hand-applied paint.
Tail End Charlie
Well, write it down boy ......
- Location
- In green and pleasant hills.
mikeymustard
Guru
For those that are interested. I have decided to sell my pair of Fothergills as I still have not got round to building them up and cant see me doing them any time soon.
Follow the link http://s720.photobucket.com/user/stevevw100/slideshow/Fothergill
Follow the link http://s720.photobucket.com/user/stevevw100/slideshow/Fothergill
Steve! I'm very interested!
Just joined the forum a few days ago in search of a Fothergill for James Fothergills granddaughter. Looking for a small ladies frame, perhaps ~53cm, but at this point any fothergill frames up for sale I'm interested in.
Both those frames look beautiful, although perhaps a bit big. Having trouble loading images but it looks like they have had a really nice restoration job. How much are you looking for for each frame?
Thanks,
Art
Just joined the forum a few days ago in search of a Fothergill for James Fothergills granddaughter. Looking for a small ladies frame, perhaps ~53cm, but at this point any fothergill frames up for sale I'm interested in.
Both those frames look beautiful, although perhaps a bit big. Having trouble loading images but it looks like they have had a really nice restoration job. How much are you looking for for each frame?
Thanks,
Art
ozboz
Guru
- Location
- Richmond ,Surrey
Hi, there is a bloke called Tony Smith , he had a ladies Fothergill , maybe he still has it , he is very knowledgeable on Fothergill bikes
ozboz
Guru
- Location
- Richmond ,Surrey
I'd like to take it , but the shop I live above is changing owners, I've been told that the new owner wants to take the premises with vacant possession so they can accommodate their own people, so I have a problem now finding suitable accommodation elsewhere with adequate storage for all the bike frames , wheels stuff I have already accumulated, ,
I'll keep it in mind , I got sorted out ok then I'll be in touch , obv, if someone else wants it sell it on ,
Ok Mate
I'll keep it in mind , I got sorted out ok then I'll be in touch , obv, if someone else wants it sell it on ,
Ok Mate
