The Copper Chopper!
- Thread starter expjawa
- Start date
Help Support Rat Rod Bikes Bicycle Forum:
The trouble with that is that I want to have the yellow lenses to tie into the color scheme.
I guess I owe an update here, its been a while since I've been on the site and I am now woefully behind in trying to keep up with everyone's progress. Though I haven't posted, that doesn't mean I've been entirely without progress. I drew up this cool sketch to sort out the design ideas I had. You don't get a sense of color with this, but it'll use the yellow shown above, with a wrinkle-finish brown as a second color, plus I'm thinking chrome and copper accents.
I want to keep the frame's upper truss work open as possible. That's what distinguishes a Spaceliner frame, so it'd be silly to obscure it. My plan is to use the bigger amber lamp as a central, fared-in headlight, with the smaller yellow fog lights in pods offset from it on the either side. They'd be visually connected with copper tubing, which I could run wiring inside. Part of the design theme is to use the copper tubing as external conduits in several places. I'll make the fairings out of aluminum, as well as the tail section with the fins and "rocket engine", which would have LEDs in the tail cone.
Then I realized that I have to disregard a bunch of it because they don't work in the mock up. Particularly the lights - they're all too big to fit and integrate the way I've drawn them. So I'm back to the drawing board, as it were. But I have some ideas, and I think that I'll just have to figure out some of it as I go.
I dug out a chrome & red Spaceliner chain guard that I bought to use on this frame a while ago. I also found this Murray tank that I might be able to use as the basis of the headlight fairing:
I also took delivery of a box of awesome, in the form of a pair of side covers for an early Kawasaki KZ400:
The scoops on these covers are perfect for my rocket engine scoop. What's more is that, inverted, it fits nearly perfectly in the rear triangle above the chain guard, and the scoop inlet is nearly parallel to the seat tube. I'll have to trim the back to allow me to set them into the frame, but they work well for the front half of the rear bodywork. Mock up pictures:
I'm thinking about using the yellow fog lights as front and rear lights, and maybe use red & green Delta rocket lights as the offset light pods on either side of the headlight. That isn't exactly the same the sketch, but it keeps the idea intact. The next step - after giving the workbench a good cleaning up - is to strip the bugger down and getting the body details worked out...
Any June updates on this beauty??
Yeah...no.
What I have realized recently is that the project, as I sketched it out, is too ambitious for the time I've got to put into it this year. Rather than compromise it with a "light" version, I'm simply going to put it on hold (much to the dismay of anyone that actually cares, I' sure
). It doesn't help that I've been somewhat distracted with another recent purchase that has taken up a bit of my free time:
However, all is not lost. I'm switching to a different frame, and plan to do something a little more traditional (read: simpler). Basically, as the saying goes, I'm just going to build a cool bike that I can ride. I have this Schwinn straight-bar frame that I took on trade a couple months back hanging in the shop that I'd like to do something with:
It seems as good a starting point as any. I may keep some of the motifs and vague themes from the Goldenliner idea, and I've already got the 3G copper wheels chosen, so I'll still use those. I'm going to make some sort of tank plate or something for it - here's the pattern I made:
But other than that, I have only general ideas of where this is going, so I may let it lead itself. We'll see. I'll need a new name for it, though...
What I have realized recently is that the project, as I sketched it out, is too ambitious for the time I've got to put into it this year. Rather than compromise it with a "light" version, I'm simply going to put it on hold (much to the dismay of anyone that actually cares, I' sure
). It doesn't help that I've been somewhat distracted with another recent purchase that has taken up a bit of my free time:
However, all is not lost. I'm switching to a different frame, and plan to do something a little more traditional (read: simpler). Basically, as the saying goes, I'm just going to build a cool bike that I can ride. I have this Schwinn straight-bar frame that I took on trade a couple months back hanging in the shop that I'd like to do something with:
It seems as good a starting point as any. I may keep some of the motifs and vague themes from the Goldenliner idea, and I've already got the 3G copper wheels chosen, so I'll still use those. I'm going to make some sort of tank plate or something for it - here's the pattern I made:
But other than that, I have only general ideas of where this is going, so I may let it lead itself. We'll see. I'll need a new name for it, though...
All I can say is great! We'll eventually end up with 2 cool builds!
Good luck, Rg
Good luck, Rg
I've got the fenders and chain guard for this frame as well, but don't know if I'll use them. What I'll have to come up with is the bottom bracket bearing set for a Schwinn crank, since the cups have been removed by someone else. I've been made to understand that, like all things Schwinn, they were specific to the bearings that Schwinn used...
Great frame to switch to. I always enjoy following your builds and style. Looking forward to your Schwinn.
OK, a minor update. I made a template for the tank from the above tracing, electing to actually make a wooden tank instead of a simple tank plate. So I cut out to match a mid-tube profile, like the steel tank would be (I split the difference between the inner and outer lines). Here's the template fitted to the frame:
It was then transferred to a 3/4" thick piece of birch plywood that I bought at Home Depot. They only had it in 2'x4' sizes, when I could've gotten away with something a bit smaller:
Since I had the material, I elected to cut out 4 pieces rather than 2, and I'll laminate them into two pair to build up the thickness from 3/4" to 1.5" on a side. The sheet was cut into manageable chunks on the table saw, but actually cutting out the shapes was cut short due to technical issues with the band saw. So I handed them off to a buddy with a proper wood shop. I'll get them back cut out, laminated and sanded, hopefully in a couple days. Then I'll rout the outer edges with a nice radius and notch for head tube clearance. Then its a matter of deciding on the finish. I'm tempted to urethane the raw birch, but might decide to go with a darker stain first.
I previously mentioned that I'd already ordered a set of copper 3G wheels (the 27mm ones, not the wide ones) for the Spaceliner frame, and I plan to use those here instead. So I also picked up a coil of 3/8" copper tubing to make truss rods from. I have the original ones for the bike, but they're badly pitted, so I'll use them as patterns. I can work on that while I'm waiting for Jason to finish the tank bits...
It was then transferred to a 3/4" thick piece of birch plywood that I bought at Home Depot. They only had it in 2'x4' sizes, when I could've gotten away with something a bit smaller:
Since I had the material, I elected to cut out 4 pieces rather than 2, and I'll laminate them into two pair to build up the thickness from 3/4" to 1.5" on a side. The sheet was cut into manageable chunks on the table saw, but actually cutting out the shapes was cut short due to technical issues with the band saw. So I handed them off to a buddy with a proper wood shop. I'll get them back cut out, laminated and sanded, hopefully in a couple days. Then I'll rout the outer edges with a nice radius and notch for head tube clearance. Then its a matter of deciding on the finish. I'm tempted to urethane the raw birch, but might decide to go with a darker stain first.
I previously mentioned that I'd already ordered a set of copper 3G wheels (the 27mm ones, not the wide ones) for the Spaceliner frame, and I plan to use those here instead. So I also picked up a coil of 3/8" copper tubing to make truss rods from. I have the original ones for the bike, but they're badly pitted, so I'll use them as patterns. I can work on that while I'm waiting for Jason to finish the tank bits...
Sounds like a very cool plan!
Luke.
Luke.
Sorry in advance for the crappy photos, I really think my cell phone camera is getting progressively worse. And for being late in getting back on track here. My friend has taken a little longer with the wood parts then I'd like, so I'll have to come back to that. I finally took the wheels out of the box.
The copper color is pretty accurate, I think, but its darker, or perhaps redder, than the coil of copper tubing I had in the shop from Home Depot:
I do think that the raw copper would probably be more similar if polished. Anyway, I had a set of Electra Hotster redline tires in the shop, so I mounted those up:
Rear wheel mounted:
A little grindy-grind required to open up the fork ends:
And the front wheel too:
I'm thinking about saddle choices. I have an older Brooks B17 that is a very dark (almost black) green with copper rivets. But I think this Schwinn saddle might be more suitable, its closer to the right color family, plus it looks pretty cool:
OTOH, I'm still debating a chain guard - if I'll even use one. The one I'm thinking about is this two-tone green Panther piece:
The lighter green on the rear looks a lot like patinaed copper, so it might be appropriate regardless. I'm thinking about painting the forward/feather section in an aged copper, or maybe hammer-tone copper paint.
Either way, this is going to start coming together a bit faster over the next week, I think, since time is running short. I have some other idea percolating in the front of my mind that I'll be trying out here shortly.
The copper color is pretty accurate, I think, but its darker, or perhaps redder, than the coil of copper tubing I had in the shop from Home Depot:
I do think that the raw copper would probably be more similar if polished. Anyway, I had a set of Electra Hotster redline tires in the shop, so I mounted those up:
Rear wheel mounted:
A little grindy-grind required to open up the fork ends:
And the front wheel too:
I'm thinking about saddle choices. I have an older Brooks B17 that is a very dark (almost black) green with copper rivets. But I think this Schwinn saddle might be more suitable, its closer to the right color family, plus it looks pretty cool:
OTOH, I'm still debating a chain guard - if I'll even use one. The one I'm thinking about is this two-tone green Panther piece:
The lighter green on the rear looks a lot like patinaed copper, so it might be appropriate regardless. I'm thinking about painting the forward/feather section in an aged copper, or maybe hammer-tone copper paint.
Either way, this is going to start coming together a bit faster over the next week, I think, since time is running short. I have some other idea percolating in the front of my mind that I'll be trying out here shortly.
Those redlines look great on the copper wheels!
Glad to see you're still making progress buddy!
Glad to see you're still making progress buddy!
Update time. I picked some items to fill out this build, even though I was trying to use as many pre-existing parts as possible. But I needed a cranks set and bottom bracket for the frame, and I didn't have anything Schwinn-specific that was in a condition I found acceptable. So I found this set with a mag-wheel style chain ring while surfing the 'Bay and got it cheap.
I'll press the bearing cups in to the bottom bracket shell later today when I have a moment at work, since I don't have a press at home. I'm going to spray the chain ring copper, I think, to go with the wheels. Tied to that thinking, I also bought a box of copper rivets for fastening some sheet metal parts together, such as reattaching the fender stays to the fender (no photo of the fender):
That should make for a nice accent feature.
I needed handlebars too, and decided to use ape hangers for the first time ever, and go with a sort of chopper look. I didn't have any, so I bought a set of 13" Wald apes from Amazon:
I found a set of NOS Hunt-Wilde copper glitter grips, so those are coming shortly. I expect to have much of this on the bike in the next couple days.
Lighting: I plan on having custom headlight and tail lights on this bike. Regarding the headlight, I'm going to use the lens/reflector from another old Big Beam flashlight. I had the idea, though, that it would be cool to mount it in a spun aluminum cone. I found that a 4" spinner cone for a large-scale RC airplane propeller ought to fit the bill, so I found a hobby shop that had one in stock for a reasonable price, that's on its way too. For the tail lights, though, I picked up a set of Soma Road Flare LED bar ends.
LEDs on:
They're quite bright, have a flash mode and a side light port (see above). I'm not going to tell you what I'm doing with them yet, but it involves the 12" piece of aluminum bar stock also shown.
One last note for now - I'd mentioned before about making truss rods with copper tubing. I've decided to make them the headlight mount, so that might be the last parts I make, once the headlight is finished, so they can be form to properly fit the lamp assembly.
I'll press the bearing cups in to the bottom bracket shell later today when I have a moment at work, since I don't have a press at home. I'm going to spray the chain ring copper, I think, to go with the wheels. Tied to that thinking, I also bought a box of copper rivets for fastening some sheet metal parts together, such as reattaching the fender stays to the fender (no photo of the fender):
That should make for a nice accent feature.
I needed handlebars too, and decided to use ape hangers for the first time ever, and go with a sort of chopper look. I didn't have any, so I bought a set of 13" Wald apes from Amazon:
I found a set of NOS Hunt-Wilde copper glitter grips, so those are coming shortly. I expect to have much of this on the bike in the next couple days.
Lighting: I plan on having custom headlight and tail lights on this bike. Regarding the headlight, I'm going to use the lens/reflector from another old Big Beam flashlight. I had the idea, though, that it would be cool to mount it in a spun aluminum cone. I found that a 4" spinner cone for a large-scale RC airplane propeller ought to fit the bill, so I found a hobby shop that had one in stock for a reasonable price, that's on its way too. For the tail lights, though, I picked up a set of Soma Road Flare LED bar ends.
LEDs on:
They're quite bright, have a flash mode and a side light port (see above). I'm not going to tell you what I'm doing with them yet, but it involves the 12" piece of aluminum bar stock also shown.
One last note for now - I'd mentioned before about making truss rods with copper tubing. I've decided to make them the headlight mount, so that might be the last parts I make, once the headlight is finished, so they can be form to properly fit the lamp assembly.
Some cool stuff going on here!
Luke.
Luke.
I like the copper accents you have planned.
Those Soma lights are pretty cool.
Those Soma lights are pretty cool.
Some signs of progress. I pressed the bearing cups into the bottom bracket shell, so there's really nothing to stop me from starting to assemble the basic bike hardware:
I got the wood tank parts back from Jason, so they're mostly ready for staining and urethane:
I need to put some wood filler in the small voids along the edges, where some of the ply layers chipped out at the edges, but that's not rocket science. Speaking of rockets, I'll touch back on my bar-end plug lights and their conversion to tail lights. Some of the themes from my original sketch are still bouncing around in my head; I was inspired in part by the old Delta marker light rockets, but always thought that they were funny as tail lights since the lens was the cone of the rocket. A riding buddy of mine is our head machinist at work. I brought him the aluminum barstock I previous showed, the bar end plugs and described what I had in mind. He made a pair of these for me on the CNC lathe:
You can't see it here, but they're bored internally so that the bar end plug pushes in snugly. With the light installed:
I realize it potentially resembles a completely different sort of product, but as this is a family site, we won't discuss the alternate uses. My intent is to make a sort of tail fin for the rear fender, and have one of these mounted to each side, maybe with they're own little fin extensions. Lastly, for now, the spun aluminum cone showed up:
Goldfish cracker shown for scale reference... In order to use this for a housing for the Big Beam reflector, I'll have to find a way to flare the edge of it, so the retaining ring from the flashlight has something to hold on to. That might be problematic, depending on how hard the aluminum is, but I'll give it some thought.
Anyway, I'm exhausted, so that's enough for tonight.
I got the wood tank parts back from Jason, so they're mostly ready for staining and urethane:
I need to put some wood filler in the small voids along the edges, where some of the ply layers chipped out at the edges, but that's not rocket science. Speaking of rockets, I'll touch back on my bar-end plug lights and their conversion to tail lights. Some of the themes from my original sketch are still bouncing around in my head; I was inspired in part by the old Delta marker light rockets, but always thought that they were funny as tail lights since the lens was the cone of the rocket. A riding buddy of mine is our head machinist at work. I brought him the aluminum barstock I previous showed, the bar end plugs and described what I had in mind. He made a pair of these for me on the CNC lathe:
You can't see it here, but they're bored internally so that the bar end plug pushes in snugly. With the light installed:
I realize it potentially resembles a completely different sort of product, but as this is a family site, we won't discuss the alternate uses. My intent is to make a sort of tail fin for the rear fender, and have one of these mounted to each side, maybe with they're own little fin extensions. Lastly, for now, the spun aluminum cone showed up:
Goldfish cracker shown for scale reference... In order to use this for a housing for the Big Beam reflector, I'll have to find a way to flare the edge of it, so the retaining ring from the flashlight has something to hold on to. That might be problematic, depending on how hard the aluminum is, but I'll give it some thought.
Anyway, I'm exhausted, so that's enough for tonight.
I think you need to name your bike "Steely Dan" now
LOL, King. Yeah...no, I'm not going there. So, I was out at the Syracuse Hot Rod Nationals this weekend. Lots of cool stuff, but I only took a couple pictures due to lack of a real camera. But, here:I think you need to name your bike "Steely Dan" now
Says it all, right? Awesome paint work on this bucket-T:
But what was really cool was this copper-clad rod, which really takes some of the ideas I'm working with to an extreme:
Nearly the entire body was sheeted in random-sized coupons of copper, formed and riveted together. An incredible amount of work involved.
While there, I found this lens in the swap meet area:
I assume its a back-up lens, since there were red lenses that matched it in the pile. But at close to 4" in diameter, it nearly matches my spinner cone for a headlamp housing. Put together quick and dirty:
And lit up with a Bontrager headlight from my road bike stuck inside:
I still haven't sorted out how I'm actually going to illuminate it yet, but I'm moving ahead with this rather than lens/reflector from the Big Beam. In other news, my Hunt-Wilde grips showed up yesterday:
Little by little.
I don't blame you swtiching to that lens. It's awesome!
Very cool lens!
Luke.
Luke.
Alright, do my tail lights look a little more appropriate if they look something like this?
I'm probably actually going to do two fins about 120 degrees apart, with the rocket itself being mounted to the top of a larger fin. The fin is made from a scrap of copper sheeting I had, though the color difference is harder to pick out in the photo.
Other than that, I went over all the old paint with polishing compound and found it shined up reasonably well were it wasn't scratched off. I drilled out the rivets for the fender stays. I'll paint the stays copper in the next day or so, the reattach with copper rivets. I have to borrow my father's rivet gun though. This also gives me a chance to more or less straighten the ends of the fender without the stays getting in the way.
I'm probably actually going to do two fins about 120 degrees apart, with the rocket itself being mounted to the top of a larger fin. The fin is made from a scrap of copper sheeting I had, though the color difference is harder to pick out in the photo.
Other than that, I went over all the old paint with polishing compound and found it shined up reasonably well were it wasn't scratched off. I drilled out the rivets for the fender stays. I'll paint the stays copper in the next day or so, the reattach with copper rivets. I have to borrow my father's rivet gun though. This also gives me a chance to more or less straighten the ends of the fender without the stays getting in the way.
Cool fins, looks great!
Luke.
Luke.
