Ricky
They look shiny! Have you done anything to stop them rusting?
G
More Questions, Now The Wheels
Have not done a thing other than polish them. I Have not made up my mind yet as to leave them as they are (polished) and occasionally clean them up as you would any spoke wheel (steel wool), or have them maybe flash coated with chrome, not polished. The spokes really look good right now, but as LM says, they will probably rust later on. If I do coat them, any suggestions from the gallery would be appreciated. The spokes were just dirty and really needed a good cleaning. There was no rust at all on them and could have been cleaned with steel wool, but the polishing wheel worked wonders and was extremely easy to do. Almost all of the nupples are brass, as the chrome has worn off of them, but they sure polish up nice.
I don't know what the original coating was,on the spokes cad, nickel, chrome, zinc or whatever, if I knew, I just might get them done in that finish before I put the wheel back together. I do know that the nipples were chromed. Would really like to have the bike as close to original as possible. The bike will probably not be a show winner, but will be as close to it as I can get it. Attached is a picture of the bike before I took it apart.
Ricky
Spokes are usually zinc plated but it is quite thin so any abrasive will take it off. Zinc plating is pretty cheap compared with chrome and offers good corrosion protection. Your (now) bare steel spokes will rust quickly and will it be difficult to stop that happening, hence the original plating. Currently, yours will have a thin layer of grease from the polishing compound. I usually just clean mine up with a wire wheel and send them off to the platers. Nipples are often nickel-plated brass. G '60 C77 '60 C72 '62 C72 Dream '63 CL72
'61 CB72 '64 CB77 '65 CB160 '66 Matchless 350 '67 CL77 '67 S90 '77 CB400F
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