Got a couple of preparatory bits done with the frame today. There was part of a seatpost rattling around in the seat tube. I'm guessing the previous owner hacked and whacked the original in there when it got stuck! Took it to a welder friend and we tried attaching some rod in the hope of pulling it out. Didn't work so we resorted to a thicker rod with a notch ground into it and hit it repeatedly with the big hammer Managed to break up the remains of the post and it's all gone
The other thing was a threaded bottle cage nut stuck to the rivet nut which was loose. Tried wangling it out with mole grips with no joy so ended up using a hack saw. Luckily the other half of the rivet nut rattled out of the BB housing through the hole at the base of the down tube
Got to talking about stripping the frame and he recommended some SAS Paint and Gasket Remover that he'd used on his Harley fuel tank. He still had some left so we gave it a go on some of the harder to strip/ reach bits of the frame. As you can see below the results were impressive!?
Finally- a question. In the last pic, on the top tube, you can see some rather cool looking rust patterns! I've had these on previous strip-downs and they're easy enough to sand away. Just wondering if anyone knows why/ how they happen?
Just been weighing some of the components for this build and guestimating what the outstanding bits will weigh...looks like it'll come in at around 10kg/22lb ish