Late 40s / Early 50s René Herse tip find

[dirttorpedo]

Not to mention, I think @Jonny69 is doing everything right here. I've been here long enough to see the impulse to go straight for decoration / finition / tarty ness about frames. He his keeping a sound level head with this tip find. And learning a lot.

Nothing is won or lost until (except putting in some time wrenching investment and critical parts to actually get a understanding of what you acquired) and marking a key check point early "is it worth it?" Do I actually want this in my fleet and will it give me something?

You only get an answer about these type of builds by getting it rolling again, going to basics, and sitting on the blessed thing
and going from A to B. If it suits, game on. It's a treasure. It's RH for free. If it doesn't suit, pass the project on to someone else.

A very sensible perspective that general poverty has allowed me to follow on most of my vintage bikes.

 

[legrandefromage]

If the brakes are a bit poor, try good quality cable outer/ inner and try different straddle lengths for more leverage but you may end up with fork judder

New brake blocks will help too but beware that style of pad can physically pop out under heavy braking

Those Mafacs are normally pretty decent and some time taken over adjustment should help, but also double check those levers are not to flexi

 

[Jonny69]

^ LGF the Mafacs actually work really well, like you said, and only need light finger pressure to pull the bike up. Just let down by a couple of dinks on the rims and the fact that the pads are old and slightly unevenly worn.