I spent some time yesterday preparing my new old Colnago frame for the eventual build. Tasks completed:

• Pulled the bottom bracket. Had to take it to the shop to get the right side pulled. Note to self: Italian-threaded bottom brackets are right-hand threaded on both sides, regardless of what your crappy service manual says.
• While at the shop, got a Campy seatpost binder to replace the ugly bolt that was being used by the previous owner.
• Pulled the brakes, and washed the frame and fork, taking note of all the scratches and worn spots. The cleanup itself resulted in a better looking bike.
• Washed and lubed the brakes.
• Took a bunch of detail photos.
• Bought and applied touch-up paint. Luckily, the worst paint dings were in the black sections of the paint job, so I fixed the worst dings with black metallic model paint. It seemed to be a pretty decent match. I also applied fresh white paint to the clover logos on the down tube lug and rear brake bridge. I didn't have the courage to attack the more detailed white-filled areas of the frame such as the seat stays and fork crowns.

Colnago frame after touchups

Colnago downtube lug detail

Colnago seat stays

Colnago seat cluster

Tons more pictures at my .mac site.

Today, I took the above pictures. I noticed while manipulating the bike, that the 26.8mm seatpost (the size that the eBay seller said this frame requires) didn't seem very tight -- it was very easy to rotate the bike on the seatpost while it was clamped into the stand. so, I tightened it a bit more. I could still move the seatpost, even by hand. Looking at the expansion slot in the seat tube I could see that it was completely closed. So, I tried putting a 27.2 seatpost in. No dice. I put the 26.8mm one back in and bore down on the shiny new Campy binder bolt, and promptly snapped it :-(. Another newbie mistake. Now I'm left wondering what the hell seatpost size this bike actually is. I'm guessing it's actually designed for a 27.2mm, and I've compressed it a bit by screwing it down onto a 26.8mm. It would help so much if I knew the actual model and year of this bike.