Cycle Repairing and Adjusting
With a Chapter on building a Bicycle from a Set of Parts

84 CYCLE REPAIRING with a little varnish, and kept thin enough to flow from the brush freely with turpentine. The lines are put on entirely by hand without any guide or mechanical aid to accuracy, so that a very considerable amount of skill is necessary to make a good job, and an amateur seldom, if ever, obtains goôd results. It would be wiser to have the cycle lined by a professional man, as nothing spoils the look of a machine more than amateur lining. Should, however, the amateur particularly desire to try his hand at the job, let him remember that a new pencil should first be broken in to its work by using it well on several pieces of scrap tube. Otherwise, by reason of the pencil jumping or splaying out with uneven pressure, the lines will not be true. Always give a good sweep in taking the long lines, and begin with the point of the pencil first, working it down until the whole of the face touches. The pencils used are known as sword pencils, a suitable size costing about 8d. each, or 6s. per dozen. The paint for lining cycles should first be ground with a little pale copal oil varnish, and then thinned down with sufficient of the same varnish to render the paint workable. For stencilling, the paint will have to be made stiffer than for ordinary work, or it will run ; but such a paint does not dry with a brilliant gloss like ordinary enamel ; still, it will be better than if ground with linseed oil. To get a bright gold line it will be necessary to line in with oil gold- size, and when this is nearly dry, cover with gold-leaf and dust off the excess. Cycles can be lined by the use of transfer lining paper. The frame is first thoroughly cleaned, and the transfers