Heavily snipped... for the experience i gained from observing them in this state of "undress" & ...for me, the restoration was an academic pursuit. e-RICHIE
An interesting motivation, one that I find myself caught by. That said, now with reasonably good digital cameras and economic storage, would it not be worthwhile to document the process and the "truth" below the paint? Mr. Maas has done this in some aspects but perhaps a more systematic or at least some waypoints suggested to document what was found.
I have two projects currently as examples, one was easy to decide, strip & repaint, as it had nasty powder coat applied, chemically stripped that one, as I assumed it was blasted once and thought that to blast through the powder would be too much risk, I was pleased by how much of the original filework was still visible for reference. It is a '73 Milano Masi. The academic part is documenting the bike as obtained and laid bare, not that this will be an extremely comprehensive one but part of a contribution for others later.
The other needed to be rebuilt to reference the condition of the moving parts, cleaned up and put back together. Here images of the frame upon disassembly at the major connections can allow others to see at least some of its construction attributes. This one has some peeling chrome, that is a problem if one wishes to ride it without possible major post ride effort to keep rust at bay.
And I did not even write about documenting frame geometry.
Thanks Richard, as I have been thinking of this off and on but have not thought of a methodology too much.
John Jorgensen
Palos Verdes Ca