So I have a serviceable "hybrid" bike, which gets me to work and back, but one of the pedals is loose, and it's not as .... cool as I'd like, and generally, well, it could be more fun. So I figured, I have access to a workshop, welder, grinder, heck, even a lathe. How hard can building a pushbike be??
Day 1
So my boss, who heartily endorses eccentrification ventures such as this, while he waits for his V8 to come back from the rebuild, and searches for a VW body to put it in, has children. Like most children, they have old pushbikes. Donor bikes. Yay donor bikes!
The purple is nice! The pink and white is ... less me. But hey, they're all getting sprayed black, so whatever. The initial plan was to take the rear triangle of the red and white, graft a couple of lengths of pipe onto it, attach the bottom bracket from the purple bike int he appropriate place, ditto the headstem, and we're away. It was going to be that way on the grounds that I wanted the bottom bracket and the headstem from the purple one to be the ones I used, because they looked better. Hah!
Naked bike! I had to grind the headstem out of the purple bike - it had siezed so hard I couldn't get the handlebars off. So much for re-using it .... So. Doesn't matter much - I did the *clever* thing, and tried the rear wheel from the purple (with the 5-speed shimano SIS cogs) in the red and white, and ... no go. So I tell myself, now, actually, the handlebars on the red and white are much cooler. Dynamic, organic design decisions are the heart of eccentrification!
At this point, I very nearly stuck a seat on top, pedals on the middle, and invoked the unicycling spirit of Morgan. Almost :)
Tips on stripping paint.
- Use more paint stripper. Even more. Really lather it on there.
- Wait. Take the stickers off first. Now put more paint stripper on where the stickers were.
- Now leave it for about twice as long as the instructions say. Maybe longer. Explain to your boss that having it sandblasted a) costs money, and b) means you can't say "I did all the work".
- Scrapers work ok, but if the stripper has really done its job, you can almost hose the stuff off, given a high powered hose, like, say, a fire hose. Not that I'm condoning that. Just saying. The hose won't take off the undercoat/primer, but then, neither will the scraper. Repeat steps above for the primer, including explaining to your *other* boss that sandblasting a) costs money, and b) means you can't say "I did all the work".
- Grind clean the bits you need to weld, and when the welding and build is done, have the fucker sandblasted. You have better things to do with your time, especially if your boss knows a bloke who'll sand and prime it (and do a good job) for $50.
Thus concludes day 1.
Half a day, basically, and tomorrow I'm ready to grind. Taking the front spars off, so just keeping the back triangle. Then I'll weld a spar up in a straight line from the top bar of that triangle (since that clean straight line is the heart of a chopper, to my mind), run another spar up from the bottom bracket, and where they meet I'll put a headstem. Add wheels & forks, and work out where to put the new bottom bracket. Hopefully, by the end of tomorrow, I'll have the frame welded, and ready for sandblasting. Hopefully :)Day 2!