Holdsworth Championship rebuild

[allenh]

Like the cable run to the rear mech, Holdsworth couldn't make up their mind sometimes whether to run them over or under the BB despite the pics in the catalogues..... Maybe they tossed a coin in the factory

Yes not quite Falcon levels of make what we feel like this week but like all great British institutions the paperwork is merely a guide

 

[Midlife]

Yup, Falcon were legendary . Love the colour, pale champagne

 

[torqueless]

Re:

poor?

Well, if you can't see the difference then it doesn't matter. My apologies. Very good work.

 

[Peachy!]

Re: Re:

poor?

Well, if you can't see the difference then it doesn't matter. My apologies. Very good work.

torqueless, I think you’re missing the point chum.
Speaking for myself, I like the fact that on this forum there are lots of people with experience and knowledge different to mine and engaging in constructive discussion about what may or may not be correct regarding a particular restoration or bike building project is exactly why I post my build threads.
Just a suggestion, but rather than saying something is very poor, how about explaining politely why you think something is incorrect. This may help Allen with his build or, he may be able to explain his reasoning for a particular course of action.

Just saying, not having a go....promise

 

[roadking]

Like the cable run to the rear mech, Holdsworth couldn't make up their mind sometimes whether to run them over or under the BB despite the pics in the catalogues..... Maybe they tossed a coin in the factory

Sure you know this, but these frames (esp the lower end/mid range ones) weren't built by one individual, I still recall visiting the factory* and seeing the construction/production methods.

*We had a cycle touring club at school and Holdsworth was one of a number of"field visits".

Rk.

 

[torqueless]

Re: Re:

poor?

Well, if you can't see the difference then it doesn't matter. My apologies. Very good work.

torqueless, I think you’re missing the point chum.
Speaking for myself, I like the fact that on this forum there are lots of people with experience and knowledge different to mine and engaging in constructive discussion about what may or may not be correct regarding a particular restoration or bike building project is exactly why I post my build threads.
Just a suggestion, but rather than saying something is very poor, how about explaining politely why you think something is incorrect. This may help Allen with his build or, he may be able to explain his reasoning for a particular course of action.

Just saying, not having a go....promise

Well, if I have to spell it out, it's difficult not to come across as a pompous doctrinaire...

I usually operate on the 'word to the wise' basis. I don't know how long memories are, or if anyone reads my posts. Not that I'm a fount of bicycle wisdom anyway. I just have my little rule of decal placement on down tubes, gleaned from empirical observation of old bikes: Stretch a string from seatpost binder to front dropouts and it passes through the centre of the length of the name on the tube. I'm all for creative experimentation, but if I can see this rule in use historically in any given marque/model, I fail to understand why anyone obviously aspiring to faithfully reproduce the 'factory spec.' finish would wilfully deviate from it?

Both the seat tube and down tube decals on Allen's Championship are noticeably further towards the BB than those on the Championship in the picture linked to by Midlife upthread. It might look OK on a bare frame but it won't look right when the components go on. Not to me, anyway.

Allen has done this before, on other bikes, and it has been commented on, so it's not like he's unaware of his tendency. I know how it happens because I've done it myself. IMO he got things right on his Lejeune, and I told him so.

Anyway, it's not my business to tell people where to put their decals- as Krishnamurti pointed out, if you effectively say to someone: "You haven't changed. Why not?" it is violence.

 

[allenh]

Re: Re:

Both the seat tube and down tube decals on Allen's Championship are noticeably further towards the BB than those on the Championship in the picture linked to by Midlife upthread. It might look OK on a bare frame but it won't look right when the components go on. Not to me, anyway.

Allen has done this before, on other bikes, and it has been commented on, so it's not like he's unaware of his tendency. I know how it happens because I've done it myself. IMO he got things right on his Lejeune, and I told him so.

Anyway, it's not my business to tell people where to put their decals- as Krishnamurti pointed out, if you effectively say to someone: "You haven't changed. Why not?" it is violence.

I'm not sure about the plural and how my Raleigh Record amounts to a tendency as that's the only one I recall being commented on but I'll go with it. As I replied at the time I took some measurements from the original decals that were on the frame so I doubt its far out from the original placement on my particular frame but it could well be incorrect and if it is fair enough. Also my Record it would seem wasn't a UK market frame which may or may not explain a difference.

Like most here I will happily take criticism when it is constructive and above all helpful but your original comment was neither, it came across as condescending and pompous with a resounding whiff of keyboard warrior about it and I will admit rather got my back up.

The quoted above is only slightly better but to address this one I disagree, the decals on these bikes move around quite a bit when you look at images of the production bikes so it would seem there's quite a bit of tolerance when it comes to decal placement across the production frames.

Had you asked I would have happily explained the reasoning for my particular placement choices, so to correct that my frame had no original decals to reference and with help from this forum I'd worked out my frame was a 1979 model Championship with brazed on top tube guides and all the images I found of those show different placement to the catalogue image so:

The seat tube decals as far as I can see are correct spacing wise in relation to the images I found of later production bikes which differ from the catalogue image by quite a lot and my placement I feel is right when compared to images of later production bikes with top tube cable guides.

The down tube decal also moves around and changes in size a little across the images I looked at, it's reference in most cases though is the upper bottle cage boss so that is what I went with, although I do think the Lloyds decal is very slightly smaller than the various originals which doesn't help with placement, its the same as they already offered for the Autograph and size wise is correct on that but is quite possibly not for the Championship.

The Championship Logo on the top tube which Lloyds didn't actually have in their catalogue but made up from my size estimates does seem to have come out quite well, again this one seems to move around a little on the production bikes but it seems its reference is the first cable guide on the later bikes with brazed on top tube cable guides, so again this is what I went with.

After all this the only real error as far as I can see is the lower band on the seat tube being upside down which I did miss and the eagle eyed Peachy spotted. (Take a house point that man.)

 

[torqueless]

Re:

You must have a better search engine than me, Allen. If you'd care to link to a few images of unrestored bikes that support your down tube decal placement I might be willing to concede. I can find only one other Championship and the down tube decals on it conform to my rule.

This 'tendency' is not yours alone. As I said, I have done the same thing myself. So these days I'm just trying to maintain a standard, because when those decals are allowed to slip down towards the bracket by a centimetre, that starts to become the new standard, which then gives license for them to slip down another centimetre.

I apologise for the 'school report' tone of my first post. You are right to pick me up on the 'plural', too. I don't comment on every example I see, if I did it'd start to look like I have a king(or queen?)-sized bee in my bonnet about this..

 

[allenh]

Re: Re:

You must have a better search engine than me, Allen. If you'd care to link to a few images of unrestored bikes that support your down tube decal placement I might be willing to concede. I can find only one other Championship and the down tube decals on it conform to my rule.

This 'tendency' is not yours alone. As I said, I have done the same thing myself. So these days I'm just trying to maintain a standard, because when those decals are allowed to slip down towards the bracket by a centimetre, that starts to become the new standard, which then gives license for them to slip down another centimetre.

I apologise for the 'school report' tone of my first post. You are right to pick me up on the 'plural', too. I don't comment on every example I see, if I did it'd start to look like I have a king(or queen?)-sized bee in my bonnet about this..

Constructive criticism is notoriously difficult to give without it coming across as a simple dig, and with the written word tone as I'm sure you're aware is also very difficult to express without more words than strictly necessary to just convey the point intended, but yes School Report tone is a pretty good description.

That aside if you just search Holdsworth Championship in google and select images only then quite a few come up, although you do have to sift through quite a lot of unrelated images.

On the downtube decal personally I would accept 10mm as a tolerance because if you look at a few images of quite a number of bikes you can see this tolerance exceeded on quite a few in both directions, just saving the images and drawing a line between seat clamp bolt holes and fork drop outs as per your piece of string shows this.

With mine as I say I think the decal is actually too small so this probably contributes to it looking incorrect but the reference on most of these seems to be the top bottle cage boss being the starting point and I had to go with something.

I like your piece of string method but unfortunately don't think I can use it as all the frames need to have a coat of clear lacquer applied over the decals which means assembling frame and forks even temporarily runs the risk of damage to the fresh paint that I don't want to risk assembly until the last coat has been applied and been allowed to dry sufficiently.

Hopefully now we can get this thread back to the subject at hand once I can find some time to do some more assembly.

 

[torqueless]

Re:

Well, I admit that I'm both right and wrong about this regarding Holdsworths.
The earlier seventies sans serif block transfers had such gaps between letters that there was no hope of getting them to conform to 50/50 bisection with that string without the letters disappearing behind the gear levers.
OTOH every catalogue picture I can find of bikes with the much more compact spacing of the post '78 block serif transfers seems to conform to my rule. Anyone can verify that by visiting Kilgariff with a piece of string, and it is obvious that the Championship 'Holdsworth' transfer, although a different font, is dimensionally similar, judging from the catalogue picture. The repro may be slightly longer, or even shorter, it's certainly nowhere near those '70s sans serif transfers.

the decals on these bikes move around quite a bit when you look at images of the production bikes so it would seem there's quite a bit of tolerance when it comes to decal placement across the production frames.

all the images I found of those show different placement to the catalogue image

images I found of later production bikes which differ from the catalogue image by quite a lot

I would like some evidence that these quotes refer to bikes that have not been re-finished, because my whole point is that these bikes do get refinished, the transfers are easily available, and oftentimes the amateurs (no slur intended) who position them have ad hoc methods of positioning them, or simply do not know where they go, or why they go there... and that includes me. I'm just trying to have a discussion about it.

Ultimately it's down to personal preference, but my preference would be to have the string bisect the transfer 50/50 if it can be done without the transfer passing behind the gear levers.