John Tickle RE brake plate - update

Well, after a whole bunch of hard work, the John Tickle RE brake plate is basically done. I'll admit that I was pretty excited to restore it, and I might have jumped the gun in putting this post up. It's technically not done, in the sense that it still needs new brake pads. But I think that we can all look past that detail.

As with all old / original castings, there's a porousness to it, so I really exercise restraint when sanding out the scratches and polishing the whole thing up. These old parts have a lot of soul to them, and you can see all the little details, which some might consider imperfections. But to me, that's what makes them great; the porous finish, casting marks and voids and all the little hand details that went into making them originally. Those are the things that you want to make sure to keep intact. Basically making it look great cosmetically, without destroying it's original charm and finish.

Rear scoop, for all that hot air to escape from.

Mesh covered front scoop with John Tickle RE detail, and good shot of how well all the original hardware cleaned up. The clips on the linkage turned out to have a gold hue to their plating, which was a nice surprising detail.

And the all important guts of the operation. 100% original, down to the springs and socket cap bolts that hold down the retaining plate.

Once disassembled, all the hardware and fittings got a quick degreasing and clean in the sonic tank, the inside of the brake plate and the shoes got wire brushed, the chrome brake levers were polished and then the face of the brake plate itself was sanded to remove all the scratches and gouges, and then polished. Everything was done completely by hand, and I worked on it for a minimum of 4-6 hours per evening, for a total of 8 straight days. The end result is well worth all the hard work.

It'll be mated to a standard hub that'll have cooling holes in the back side, and then the drum turned, and new shoes fitted and matched to the drum surface.

I'm still working up a post that'll highlight John Tickle and the parts that he manufactured. For the time being, this will go into the case and wait for the rest of it all to come together.

Apologies if the photos aren't too great. I can safely say that I'm a better wrench than a photographer, and these shiny things prove to be difficult to capture in photos.