Rex finish
I have been restoring a 1905 Rex over the past few years and am now almost ready to send the necessary parts away for nickel plating. I now realise there is more than one type of nickel plating: bright nickel, semibright nickel and dull nickel.
Which type of finish would have been used in the 1905 era and be appropriate for my Rex?
Richard Lemon, email.
The majority of motorcycles in the veteran and early vintage era would have had small items such as fasteners in dull nickel plate finish, and while larger items including levers, handlebars, exhausts, light fittings and the like would also have been plated with ‘dull’ nickel, they would then be polished to give a delightful, soft, slightly yellow shiny finish.
All these items were electro plated in baths using nickel strip anodes with items suspended from the cathode bar into a nickel salt solution, a mix which could contain nickel sulphate, nickel chloride and perhaps other appropriate chemicals.
The finish is dependent on both the quality of the electro plating process and the preparation quality of the items to be plated, thus rough surfaces will result in rough finishes and a perfectly smooth surface will ensure smooth plating. And if it’s smooth it will look good unpolished, but polishing with metal polish will make it shiny, and it’s worth stating this is the shiny nickel Rex and others used in the period.
Nickel was chosen in period as apart from its decorative value it offers excellent rust protection to ferrous items, once an appropriate thickness layer has been applied. Other advantages are that you can carry out this type of nickel plating in the home workshop for a modest outlay, for example a starter kit with everything you need – other than cleaners, abrasives, polishing mops, degreasers etc to prepare items – will cost circa £150.
The downside includes time consuming parts preparation, each items needs wiring to the cathode bar individually and some ingenuity may be needed to plate larger items.
As mentioned elsewhere, in the past, I’ve home-plated the majority of nickel finished items for four restoration projects. The results were good almost from opening my first kit, and, as above, dull unpolished finish suited nuts, bolts, washers, etc while the larger items were polished after plating.. But after four motorcycles I gave up, because the whole process of using small plating baths where only a small handful of items comprised a batch, and the preparation of derusting, stripping, degreasing, filing, cleaning with emery cloth and polishing, took so long.
And now I’m 71, I’m not sure I have enough years left to spend time on the nickel plating job when I’d rather be on with the next project! But the costs involved in having items professionally plated today may force me to rethink this...
Many platers offer a range of nickel finishes, such as bright and very bright – achieved by adding brighteners in conjunction with softening and wetting agents to the plating solution and other finishes include satin, brushed, semibright. Why, you will ask. The nickel plating needs of us restorers of very old motorcycles is tiny when one considers the bigger picture of nickel plating applications as it’s used for the brightwork for plumbing such as taps, fittings, shower heads and more, and it has extensive use for industrial equipment where rust protection is needed.
It is also applied to many metals to provide the first surface onto which chrome, gold, silver etc is applied as a top finishing coat.
Back to your situation, Richard. Many platers only offer bright nickel for motorcycle parts as they don’t want their name associated with dull and polished ‘dull’ nickel items, however they may offer a semi-bright finish which is nearer what your 1905 Rex will need, and, apparently, a few firms are now offering dull nickel finish which can then be polished, but I’ve yet to find one!
Nickel plate finish may yet become the process of choice due to the health and safety issues involved in setting up to commercially offer chromium plating, as the hazardous chemical solutions involved with electro plating chrome aren’t needed for nickel plate finishes.
Following TCM’s Restoration Guide for the Wall Autowheel, published April 2021, pages 70-71, I’ve been badgered by a big handful of you about the machine and its lifecycle.
The badgering involves much mickey taking and mirth, as some of you know I have a leaning to the bizarre, unloved and ‘best forgotten.’ There is no doubting the Wall Autowheel and its derivatives are bizarre, but they aren’t unloved and certainly shouldn’t be forgotten.
Lurking on a garage shelf alongside a factory fresh rebuilt 500cc Goldie motor, is an equally factory fresh, fully rebuilt and ready to go 1914 BSA-built 118cc automatic inlet valve Wall Autowheel engine, and its rusty but near complete subframe, awaiting the next stage… It has been waiting about three years! I hasten to add it is not mine, but I can’t distance myself from it, nor do I want to, as it belongs to son Peter, who, after a beer too many in the pub, stated: “If you build it, I’ll ride it to Brighton on the Pioneer Run.” So, one day, it has to be done!
Dutch born (1874) British engineer Arthur William Wall founded the engineering business A W Wall Ltd, involved in engineering, gear cutting, the manufacture of cycle parts and much more. Wall had a fertile, inventive mind; one assumes much went into the rubbish bin, but a lot found its way into manufacture and some of his thinking was advanced and logical, such as epicyclic gear systems displayed late 1903 for motorcycles. Wall’s logic included compartmentalising his production ideas into companies, such as The Roc Gear Co., Wall Cars Ltd, and even a company with branding for a late veteran, early vintage lightweight motorcycle, of which few were made due to the First World War.
Often, inventors, designers and engineers who launch a number of companies do so to shed debts, leave a smoke screen or keep one step ahead bankruptcy. In Wall’s case, for the most part this didn’t apply, as his business sense seems sound enough, the gear cutting (including epicyclic sets for industry and equipment manufacture) was profitable, and, perhaps most importantly, he had the backing, encouragement and support of his brother-in-law, Dr (later Sir) Arthur Conan Doyle, of Sherlock Holmes fame. Conan Doyle was, for a time, a keen motorcyclist, among his other vehicular interests, and it is perhaps fun to imagine their active, fertile minds stimulated by the odd after dinner smoke together of substances we aren’t today allowed, to be scheming their next mystery or engineering breakthrough – did they help each other? Surmise perhaps, but some scholars believe
Sir Arthur tried the ‘habits’ of Sherlock – for research, of course – and it is known the two Arthurs got on well.
Mr Wall first publicly showed his motorcycle hand at the
1903 Stanley Show with a long wheelbase, Belgian Kelcompowered 3hp Roc motorcycle, with Roc epicyclic gear.
He later developed this concept into the Roc Epicyclic motorcycle rear wheel hub gear with free engine facility, which was displayed in 1907, including at Crystal Palace Show, but may well have been available as early as 1905/6, while still under development. Differing in detail and frame mountings, some motorcycle makers – including Humber,
Bat and Rex – offered this as an option for production models in the 1910-1912 period.
Some light car and cyclecar makers used variants of the
Roc two-speed epicyclic gear with free engine facility for their three and four-wheel vehicles, including AC for the Sociable. Alongside this and other engineering work, AWW marketed Roc motorcycles 1904-15, some with his own engines, others using proprietary units including Precision and the 269cc Villiers two-stroke engine for 1914-15.
Wall also offered circa 1911 a Tricar with two-wheels at the back, two-seater bodywork between (tandem style) and motorcycle steering and power train, and he developed a cyclecar with up to 8hp V-twin (probably JAP) engines. Seemingly, these never went into production.
As if the above wasn’t enough for one mind, Arthur Wall, who’d followed the rise and success of cycling, developed a powered cycle attachment. Some sources state this was the first cyclemotor, to which you can all reply: “What about the Clément (c1901), Motosacoche (1901), arguably Minerva (1901)… and others?” However, the ‘first’ that Wall achieved was a quickly mountable and detachable attachment for cycles, complete with fuel tank and ignition. Literally, it takes no more than 20 minutes, including fitting handlebar lever which serves as throttle and decompressor plus routing twin cables. And it can be removed just as easily to return the cycle to its former state.
Sources imply AWW worked on his autowheel from circa 1906, and certainly 1907. It was patented in 1908 and displayed at the autumn 1909 Stanley Show. Weighing around 25lbs and priced at £15- 10s (£15.50) it was powered by an 80cc (some say 90cc) two-stroke engine. It appears none of these were sold and later the Autowheel sported a 160cc horizontally opposed twin two-stroke engine. Apparently, this engine failed to run evenly and with other projects to work on, Wall took a back seat.
Various concerns – including Humber – either helped or were contracted to work on a better engine for the Wall Autowheel, leading to a 118cc automatic inlet valve four-stroke single cylinder engine, which was supposedly ready for production by the 1910 autumn show season. It couldn’t have been, because the press stated in spring 1912 the concept was nearing its last stages of perfection. This all seems bizarre, as publicity photographs of up-and-running Walls were available from circa September/October 1910. Perhaps, they were just posed to maintain interest in the project. Who knows.
A new company, the International Autowheel Company, was established to make and market the Wall Autowheel at Russell Road, London and models trickled onto the market from circa February 1913. It is believed circa 1700 units were built by the autumn 1913 Olympia Show when the company announced that to help meet demand, BSA of Birmingham was contracted to make 5000 Wall Autowheels, and they themselves would make another 5000. Certainly, BSA manufactured 5000, but it appears the International Autowheel Company made none for the 1914 season, and some observers think BSA may have made the first 1700 (possibly up to 3000) too.
The design was licensed to a number of companies across northern Europe, including the Belgian maker FN, which if true is interesting, as some consider the barrel design, including valves, to be similar to a quarter of a FN four-cylinder 500cc engine.
Another licensee was A O
Smith of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, who initially followed the Wall design and used it to power cycles, tricycles and buckboards. Taking a leaf from Henry Ford’s book, Smith painted his Autowheel red and is claimed to have stated buyers can have any colour they like, so long as it’s red!
Significantly, Stephen Briggs and Harold Stratton established a business in the locale to make small components for the fledgling American automotive industry in c1908. In 1919, they acquired the rights to the Smith (Wall) Autowheel, gave it a redesign and increased engine capacity, to create the Briggs and Stratton Co Motor Wheel. It remained red and was used for powering all the usual suspects, including the Buckboard, known by many as the ‘Red Bug.’
The Red Bug has a wooden base which flexes to offer suspension, two side-by-side bucket seats, wheel steering to the two front wheels, two wheels to the rear which are braked by moving the mudguards (via lever) to apply a braking surface to the tyres. The Motor Wheel sits behind the buckboard base and between the rear wheels. It is started by spinning its wheel (lifted off the ground) with a handle fitted to the wheel disc. To apply power, the driver lowers the motor wheel to the ground using a lever and lifts it to stop drive. It was claimed, with care, smooth getaways were achievable.
Briggs and Stratton ended manufacture circa 1924, passing the design onto the Automobile Electric Service Co who made a few more using up NOS Briggs and Stratton Motor Wheels, then continued using a 16V electric motor until 1927.