taz777

Offtopic: I switched over from Photobucket to Imgur when Photobucket started to demand money. Imgur works great for forum picture posting.

rickyk76

Looks like a great project. Can’t wait to see more pics as it comes along.

SquidPuppet

Any updates?

J.Higgins 

Yes, yes there are. Sorry to be remiss. Its been a hellish Fall season here and there are a few too many irons in my fire and the coals are dying...

Basically, I'm going to be using some Lab Metal to smooth and contour all of the shoddy workmanship. Its even more evident after the media blast.



I going to make it all smooth and creamy.



These wire wheel marks were under the original finish. I was surprised to see such poor quality. I thought post-war was the start of real quality American goods, and pride in the workforce.



I understand brazing. I've actually taken classes for gas welding and brazing, so this comes as a shocker to me. I just don't see how they could have slopped all of the braze around. My guess is that they may have used a flux that contained bronze dust, sort of pre-tinning the joints for easier brazing with fewer pinholes, etc.



Overall there's a lot of cleanup here to bring this frame up to par. Lots of sharp edges, and burrs.

J.Higgins 

Also, if you look at this pic, you can see that there is a seepage of some sort of oil. I thought it was just a shadow at first, but after running my finger inside the head tube, I did find a bunch of goo. A can of cheap brake cleaner should take care of this. I'll Framesaver this frame once it comes back from powdercoat.

SquidPuppet

Thanks for the update. Good to see progress. It'll be all be nice when you are done, and you have all winter. Take your time and enjoy the process.

If you think that stuff is bad, you should see naked electroforged Schwinns from the 50s - 70s. They didn't even knock off the slag that would splatter all over the place.

One of mine.

J.Higgins 

Hehehe, they all look great from the top-down, though, right?

J.Higgins 

More updates on the way. Sorry, but its been very hectic here since the storms that came through, I got involved and bit off more than I could chew and I'm still chewing away at it. Soon!

SquidPuppet

Alright alright already!!!!!!!!!

I gave it a week, PLUS a day since it was a holiday week.

I am ready for more updates.

yuoil 

Really like this frame. Cool build out.

J.Higgins 

Here's the filler that I'll be using. I've used it before and its great because it can be powder-coated.



Here's the Lab Metal applied to the crappy joinery. I thinned it out, and applied it with an acid brush. MUCH easier than using a spatula or popsicle stick. More precise too.

SquidPuppet

Are you going to patch them all and then smooth them? Or one area at a time?

J.Higgins 

All at once. I'll post again with the frame fully-prepped.

J.Higgins 

Checking frame alignment. Its a good thing I did. The rear was a full .250 to the port side!



10-15 minutes of tweaking brings it in compliance.



And every time you teak the rear triangles, you should ALWAYS recheck your drop-out alignments. As you can see, this was off as well.



Dead nuts now!



All dressed up and ready for the powder. I'm headed to my son's house today to help him bust loose a frozen 350 chevy engine, and then I drop this off at the powdercoater.



More to come!

SquidPuppet

Man, you have all the snazzy real tools. Cool.

Does your powder coater give you a realistic ETA?

Frozen 350? Meaning seized?

J.Higgins 

I just bought a tool every time I ordered something on Amazon. Right now all I am doing is saving up for the REALLY expensive Park tools, like the bottom bracket facing tools, threaders and stuff like that. I have all the rest.

Seized... well kinda. My he bought a barn-find matching numbers '71 Camaro down in SC, and brought it up here. We thought the motor was seized because it sat for three years. Come to find out, the lifters were froze up. we got 12 out of 16 to move. Soaking the rest with Kroil and giving them little taps with a brass drift. He's got all the original ppw, and having the motor free means a $1500-$2000 difference. Sometimes its the little things that'll help sell a car you know?

I dropped off the frame. He said it'll be ready early next week. I wouldn't be surprised if he called me tomorrow. I will definitely not be doing this again. Next cruiser build will be based on a Worksman frame, and to hell with rebuilding old crap. If its worthy old crap, like a Colson maybe, then sure, but not one of these pos again. I called Worksman, and they'll sell me a frame for $175.

SquidPuppet

Watch out. Worksman bikes aint always laser straight either.

And the frames weigh about 938 kilos. But seriously, they are unnecessarily heavy. By a lot.

J.Higgins 

I heard they are heavy. Thing is, I could probably get a cheapo Schwinn out of wallymart and it'd be just as nice after I built on it.

J.Higgins 

I've just got the frame back from the powder-coater. Not happy with how it came out. The frame is serviceable, but not as pretty as I expected. I wanted glossy and smooth, and its rather bumpy and plain. I've got more money and time into this bloody white elephant already, so what I got will simply have to do.

In lieu of my disappointment with the frame, I may lead this build in a different direction. Perhaps a klunker? I can't think of any other way to make it stand out. I'll probably just build it and see where that takes me.

Pics are on the way. I'm super tied-up today, and I have some surgery tomorrow, which might lay me up for a couple days.

SquidPuppet

Sorry to hear that man. Like orange peel bumpy? Or worse? Did you have a clear put on top? That usually provides extremely high gloss. Like show car gloss. If you haven't put oily hand prints all over it, they can still add the clear. After-the-fact is not ideal, but it can be done, with great results. I did a bike with a metallic red and did NOT order a clear (my mistake) because the red had a high (85) gloss rating. When I picked it up I was super underwhelmed and disappointed. I went home and stewed for a few hours and then brought it back to the shop. I asked if there was anything that they could do. They asked if the frame was still free of contaminants, which it was, luckily. They hit it with clear later that day and the results went from huge frown to huge smile. Not only did it have a wet looking gloss, the color POPPED like it should have. Bright and snappy. Worth investigating IMO.

The twin top tubes makes it a perfect candidate for Klunkerization. I vote yes, big time.

Best wishes for a safe procedure and speedy recovery.

J.Higgins 

I've got voicemail in on another powder-coater, so we'll see what he comes up with for a price for a glossy clear shot over the top.

In the light of our recent decision to klunk things up a notch, I'm open to ideas, @SquidPuppet do you think I should stay with a one piece crank set-up, or go 3-piece? If you say one-piece, can you recommend one? The rear wheel will be strung up with a Bendix 70, 20T, so I'm thinking maybe 42T (or thereabouts) front chainring?

Velo Orange is out of their Klunker bars until January, so thinking of perhaps a set of old school mx bars.

rhenning

The gearing sounds about right with up to a 44 or 46 depending where you live. Schwinn made/used the best one piece cranks as they also did with their bearings so I would also use the Schwinn BB. Roger

SquidPuppet

The crank and bars depend on what "type" of klunker you want to do. Now we are really getting into silly territory. Types of Klukers, LOL. But hey, the sub categories are real IMO.

If you just want a casual cruiser Klunker, I'd go with a one piece crank and a cruiser bar. If you wanted to go BMX/MTB/Sport Klunker, then I'd go 3 piece crank and a sporty handle bar.

What color did you ultimately go with? That might make things lean one way more than another.

My Heavy Duti is the casual cruiser type, in a dreary khaki color, which I prefer. But the adult sized BMX type Klunkers can be very RAD. Very very RAD.

One piece cranks can be found everywhere, if you choose to go that route. Look at this site. They offer them in a variety of arm lengths so you can pick one that is good for your leg length. Also chrome or black. PARTS & COMPONENTS - CRANKS, PEDALS, CHAINS - CRANK ARMS & SETS - ONE PIECE - Page 1 - Beach City Bike

That site also has the bottom brackets and a zillion chain ring options. If you are a fleabay shopper, you might check there to compare prices. I know the products are there as well. And Amazon too.

If you decide to go the BMX/MTB route, DansComp.com and PorkchopBMX.com are great places to shop.

If I built a BMX type Klunker it would need to have a "Race bike" color. But that's just me. Do what tickles your fancy.

Edit: If I was building a BMX type, I'd wait for that VO bar!!!!! I just looked it up. It has the totally awesome old school motorcycle MX bend. The pull back is generous and angles the hands downward. You don't see that anymore. Plus the bar will line up with the angle of the head tube beautifully. That is an AWESOME bar. Definitely wait for it IMO....if you go BMX.


This one is about as sexy as it gets. Except the lame up-bent bars. Well, to be fair, if you were actually BMXing or stunting, these would be better. But for cruising, that VO bar is too freaking perfect for me. Can you tell that I LOVE that bar?

J.Higgins 

Well, I won't be going with the new powdercoater. His prices are up there too high. I'm going to use as is, and apologize to anyone who sees the orange peel. It looks great from 5 feet, and I'm too critical sometimes anyway.

I think that I wont have a choice other than to wait for the middle of January to restart this build. I've got a hot build on the stand right now - a '53 Dunelt. Going to make it a single speed with bullhorn bars, Campy hubs, brakes, etc.

The surgery got scheduled for January as well. The surgeon decided that the growths on my back are too big for a simple office-visit removal. I'll need to be put under, and I had to sign consent form for them to issue opioids Weird. They'll probably anesthetize me and play gin on my face for a couple hours.

SquidPuppet

I'll need some photos of that when it's done, please.