Philphine

if you paint a wheel again, an easier way is to use some drinking straws and slit them sideways (depending on how you paint you might be able to cut them in half or thirds to not use so many). you can slip them over the spokes easily and even keep them for a future wheel paint job.


also if you have a spare frame, or can spray away from the frame you're building, you can put the wheel back on and spin it while you spray it. spin it fast enough to keep the straws against the rim (centrip... er... I can't remember the word) and it also makes the paint coats pretty even.

taz777

^ Centrifugal force?

ridejennyride

clever! thanks!

KD5NRH

Don't be silly; nobody would Krylon a Huffy.

Well, except me.



Local university colors, since we get students through fairly often just looking for something cheap and faster than walking a mile from off-campus housing to class. Completely rebuilt from the ground up like most of our "junk restoration" projects, (though surprisingly the tires looked good enough to keep after powerwashing) including relacing the wheels in 3-leading-3-trailing, (I was bored and there was a good movie on, and it gave me an excuse to not leave the rims the hideous rusty pale blue they started out as.) so it ought to be good for a few years with minimal care.

SquidPuppet

That thing is awesome.

KD5NRH

The repaints are mostly to get people driving by to stop and think "gee, for less than a couple new tires on my boring Ford Escort, I could be doing my local errands on something with real character."

Of course, with the hills in town, I doubt anybody will want to make a serious grocery run on a single speed, but most of what's on the pile is some sort of MTB. (Though I do have another Huffy cruiser in progress that's likely going to be hammered bronze metallic with blue/yellow accents.)
Thus, we end up with stuff like the above, or this old Galaxy done in the local HS colors.

Or the chromed out Diamondback that just looks so much cooler without any decals interrupting the shine.


Besides, it's just fun to take junk people were going to throw away and make it both useful and unique.

Philphine

that's it. my language skills and whatnot ain't so good.

SquidPuppet

Custom fade job. Stylish.

Crossthreaded88

I found that the little red straws that a bar uses for cocktails are a better fit. I do have a dedicated frame for wheel painting, one with a seat post stuck far down inside it making it useless.

Crossthreaded88

How gracious of you!

Crossthreaded88

I personally prefer Rustoleum Brand spray paint except for flat black jobs when I use the Home Depot store brand for 99 cents a can. So it looks like a fair amount of prep work, masking, repaints, and sanding. 6 hours minimum heh? What can expect to see for a return on your efforts? Looks great, college colors sell well here too, the only thing is getting paid for your work I guess. That keeps me from doing more like yours. It's different when you're gonna keep it for yourself. This was a new bike I did for a UCLA student.

swiftycoop

Put new tires on my Electra....I like them a lot!

KD5NRH

More like I was too lazy to mask on that one. Still turned out pretty well. It was done in hot weather, so the Krylon would pretty much flash dry on the metal right away. Now that it's cooled off, getting the right finish is a lot trickier.

KD5NRH

I'll do Rustoleum sometimes too, but the fast dry on the Krylon is a big benefit with these.

I'd guess 8-10 hours on that one, counting relacing the wheels. At the moment, we're rearranging the back space, and haven't set the sandblast booth back up. Really cuts the prep time down. As for overall return, we make more on the maintenance, though of course the single speed coaster brake ones rarely need more than flats fixed until they start rusting up again. (Though I think a flat fix ends up being our highest labor-charge-per-minute-spent repair.) This is more of a project to get stuff that would have been headed to the scrap yard back on the road; some just get fixed up, some rustier ones just get wire brushed and sprayed with whatever's at hand while they're already stripped down anyway, and some with character get actual thought put into them. If the price covers materials and some of my time, it's worth it to get somebody else on a bike. (And thus, of course, provide one more bike we'll be fixing from time to time.)

KOTA

Krylon...14 years ago. In 28* weather (in and out...out to paint, back in to dry between coats). Did it for my son. I saw it last month, still looks as good as the day it was painted.

taz777

Very nice indeed!

Crossthreaded88

I'd guess 8-10 hours on that one, counting relacing the wheels. At the moment, we're rearranging the back space, and haven't set the sandblast booth back up. Really cuts the prep time down. As for overall return, we make more on the maintenance, though of course the single speed coaster brake ones rarely need more than flats fixed until they start rusting up again. (Though I think a flat fix ends up being our highest labor-charge-per-minute-spent repair.) This is more of a project to get stuff that would have been headed to the scrap yard back on the road; some just get fixed up, some rustier ones just get wire brushed and sprayed with whatever's at hand while they're already stripped down anyway, and some with character get actual thought put into them. If the price covers materials and some of my time, it's worth it to get somebody else on a bike. (And thus, of course, provide one more bike we'll be fixing from time to time.)[/QUOTE]

I'm glad to see that I'm not the only guy working for peanuts! I wouldn't ever even consider re-lacing wheels on a bike that cost $100 brand new. I would kill for a sandblast booth but alas no room for such a luxury. I regularly bring back the dead but there's a limit to the life I can provide. Bad ones get flat black and a cheap price tag. I like your shop I'd like to think if I opened a shop it would be alot like yours. This is what I'm talking about.

Philphine

I like it. I started a "school colors" bike, but got bogged down by my Achilles heel. I can't build wheels, and never seem to have (or want to spend) the extra cash to have it done. but I have a 29er wheel I like (internal 7sp) and a couple of the 29er huffy cruiser frames, so I mean to try it again with one of them.

SquidPuppet

What frame is that? Year?

KOTA

It was my Father-in-law's 36 Monarch. One of the first bikes I worked on...If I knew then, what I know now. I would have never painted it....My son loves it, it was his grandfather's...My granddaughter will get it next..all in the family.

SquidPuppet

Awesome.

KD5NRH

Grab a couple of old 36 spoke wheels from whatever junk pile you can find and practice standard 3-cross and 3-leading-3-trailing. They use the same spoke length, and most wheels are already standard 3-cross, so you can use one as a reference while relacing the other. Once you have it down, it's easy to do while watching a movie or whatever.

Tensioning and truing once it's laced is a bit more in depth, but once you have the hang of it, doing a pair in a day is easy.

As for painting rims, I painted them, then laced, then cut a piece of a pizza box to match the inside radius of the wheel and used it as a handheld mask while touching up the parts I'd scratched.

Nighttrain

Thanks, I needed that and what you did with that cruiser. My son wadded up in some sand whoops and broke some expensive parts on my dirt scooter. The same one I was going to ride tomorrow.

Crossthreaded88

That's beautiful!

Thanks, he liked it so much he ordered one for his girl. Built on an old Kawayama frame with new wheels and tires.

Crossthreaded88

You're buying your parts in the wrong place, lol.

You must watch out for the word "style" after important words. A true Nantucket basket starts at $50 the one on the yellow Huffy had that New England fishing look to it and there are surely many levels of quality when it comes to faux leather grips but good bargain shopping is not lost on me, but I despise returning junk.