Claud Butler - Carpenter - Vintage Bike - Wheel Help

[WhtANightmare]

Hi All,

First of all a quick apology, as my knowledge on bikes it terrible. Me and my wife moved into her grandads house recently, and with it came a couple of vintage bikes, which we would love to get one of up and running as a nice gesture for the family, and to use for some casual riding. Both bikes have been up in a loft for 30+ years, and all the wheels are completely bent and seem past easy fixing. The grandad was a Surrey Hill Race champion back in his day, and one of them we believe he did race on in the 1950's potentially.

The first bike is a Claud Butler which has olympic stickers on it, as seen in the pictures attached. Sorry for the quality of the pictures this was limited time sorting loft currently so took a quick few whilst i could. Any help on aging of bike would be welcomed.

The second bike is a Carpenter bike (which appears to be a little local bike manufacturer 'Surbiton - London') which we can't find much info about. Can post pictures if people would like to see.

I have had a friend looking at the Claud Butler as he has some albeit very limited bike knowledge, however, the wheels seem like they used glued on tyres, which from looking online seem to be tubular tyres? The old tyres and glue were so back they had almost gone rock solid, and took forever to try to remove the old tyres. The friend said the wheels need a lot of work to get them to be aligned correctly, spokes tightened etc etc.

My main query is, whilst in an ideal world i'd love to get the wheels restore, and put on to keep as original as possible, we don't really have the money to get someone to do this. Is there a way to use new wheels on such an old frame? The friend said he tried to put his road bike 700's on the frame, but the axle was too big for the dropout (i think thats what its called).

Any help/advice for a complete bike idiot would be hugely appreciated. if anybody has any questions i will do my best to answer if i can.

 

[WhtANightmare]

I thought just for completeness of the story, it would be best to add in some pictures of the carpenter bike too. Currently we have mostly been looking at the Claud Butler as we think that was his main bike. The saddle on the Carpenter is in much better condition. so we were planning on swapping that onto the Claud at some point.

 

[Old Ned]

Carpenter's were a very well respected shop and frame builders in Kingston and their frames were ridden by many of the area's good riders. I visited the shop a couple of times when my sister lived in Kingston in the early 60's.

This will provide some useful information for you -

https://www.classiclightweights.co.uk/classic_builders/carpenter-f-h/
Have a look at the Claud Butler section as well.

 

[Blacktopdisciple]

Two beautiful bikes well worth saving. If the hubs of your original wheels are in decent order it may be worth getting them respoked with new rims, tyres and tubes. It might be difficult and more expensive to get a new set of wheels to fit in with the rest of the bike both aesthetically and mechanically. You could always try and source a second hand/vintage pair of wheels. Photos of the wheels and size detail will help others offer advice.

 

[WhtANightmare]

Carpenter's were a very well respected shop and frame builders in Kingston and their frames were ridden by many of the area's good riders. I visited the shop a couple of times when my sister lived in Kingston in the early 60's.

This will provide some useful information for you -

https://www.classiclightweights.co.uk/classic_builders/carpenter-f-h/
Have a look at the Claud Butler section as well.

Thank you for the link, looks like it has a lot of great info in it, think there will be a few weeks of bedtime reading to get my head around it all. In an ideal world i'd love to get them both restored. As with everyone at the moment, money is just making things tight. If i was to keep an eye out for second hand vintage bikes any idea what kind of thing i should look for?

thank you again for the reply.

 

[WhtANightmare]

Two beautiful bikes well worth saving. If the hubs of your original wheels are in decent order it may be worth getting them respoked with new rims, tyres and tubes. It might be difficult and more expensive to get a new set of wheels to fit in with the rest of the bike both aesthetically and mechanically. You could always try and source a second hand/vintage pair of wheels. Photos of the wheels and size detail will help others offer advice.

Thank you for quick response. I'll see if i can get a few pictures of the wheels i have and the state they are in. Do you have any recommendations on websites/shops that would sell the correct type of rims/spokes to look at?

It seems like my wifes grandad rode these bikes for many a year and it was just such a shame that when he moved into his house originally (being too old to ride anymore) that he stacked them all quite awkwardly in the loft.

 

[Guinessisgoodforyou]

Both good brands, Carpenter more so as @Old Ned said. Both would look superb, restored in my shed

 

[WhtANightmare]

Both good brands, Carpenter more so as @Old Ned said. Both would look superb, restored in my shed

I'll let you know if i pull out too much hair trying to figure out how to fix them

 

[Guinessisgoodforyou]

I'll let you know if i pull out too much hair trying to figure out how to fix them

Take your time, be methodical and do research. All will be well

 

[WhtANightmare]

The two photos attached show where my friend has got to with doing a bit of clean up. Like I say he's just stumped on how to resolve the wheels.

I also have one more wheel at my house which I attach some separate photos of, we aren't even really sure what wheels were for what bike originally. I believe my friend took three or four wheels with him.

Any links anyone can recommend for new spokes and rims? Or a place that does this as a service in itself?