>>>Eliminator 20" Muscle: Final finished picture here, p. 62

[Peatbog]

I painted clear on the frame today. I was going to wait to put all the decals on it (Park Tool and such), but I am tired of waiting for the remainder of the decals I planned to use to show up. And I want to put something together, so I wanted to finish the paint. I will put my "sponsorship" decals on top the clear-coat which is good also because I can remove them in the future if I ever want to.

Other than that all I did was paint the white on the front fender in preparation to paint the black squares to make the checkerboard stripe.



Not much, but a little at a time when I have time will git 'er done at some point.

[70mustangmatt]

looks great man keep it up

[Peatbog]

Thanks.

You know it is kind of amazing how paint is affected by weather. When I painted my frame, I put on the first color, wet sanded within the hour, taped off, put on the second color, wet sanded within the hour, taped off, and then put on the third color and was done all in one day (well, other than the checkerboard thing).

But these goofy fenders are taking forever to get to the point I can wet sand and put masking tape on them to do the next color. They aren't ready to work on within an hour, and past experience has taught me that if you can't add paint fairly quickly like that, then you have to wait at least a day or so to put more on or the paint goes wacky on you. It's bringin' me down, man.

[Circa Cycles]

Hang in there man!Still plenty of time Bike is looking great

[Peatbog]

Thanks. And to heck with paint for the time being. I have chrome to clean up.

Here's the pile of parts:



Nothing is really all that bad; it is just all covered in a layer of light rust. See those SOS pads--that is my rust removal weapon of choice. I know there are other ways of rust removal, but I am old and set in my ways, and so I use SOS pads.

Ah, finished:



Nothing ended up looking new, but from 5 feet...maybe 6, it all looks really good. Well, except the sissy bar, which had seriously deep gorges in it on the sides. It looks like the kid who owned the bike just threw it down every time he was done riding instead of using the kickstand--or maybe he wrecked a bunch, hard to tell. I might replace the sissy bar--or paint it.

The can of brake cleaner in the picture was used as a degreaser. It worked great, better than some degreasers I have used. I used it because other than gasoline, that is all I had in the garage to use at the moment. The stainless steel and brass wire brushes came in handy also. Okay, now I need some grease. Heck, I need pedals also; mine are purple!

[tin machine]

looking good dude , looking for more more !!!!

[70mustangmatt]

this thing is righteous man love what you've done

[Xcruiser]

Your not going to make it easy on the rest of us are you man?
This is looking flat awesome man,keep up the super work!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Jake Sensi]

Great work! I see ya still going strong! Peace

[yoothgeye]

Thank you for using brake cleaner instead of gasoline, for your health, gas is bad as it absorbs in the skin and hangs out in your body for a long time... in places you wouldn't want it.

The only thing I see wrong so far is that you talk about the kid that owned this bike as being a boy, but surely, it was a girl.

[jaysmo]

man this is looking real nice i like the fender looks real good.. question .. do you mind posting a pick of the head tube bolt does yours have a regular hex head on it?? im just wondering mine does but it looks funny that way...

[Peatbog]

Thanks for the compliments guys. I appreciate it.

Thank you for using brake cleaner instead of gasoline, for your health, gas is bad as it absorbs in the skin and hangs out in your body for a long time... in places you wouldn't want it.

I'm guessing the brake cleaner isn't so good for me either.

The only thing I see wrong so far is that you talk about the kid that owned this bike as being a boy, but surely, it was a girl.

That would explain the scratches on the bike obtained whilst parking.

man this is looking real nice i like the fender looks real good.. question .. do you mind posting a pick of the head tube bolt does yours have a regular hex head on it?? im just wondering mine does but it looks funny that way...

Is this the bolt of which you speak--meaning the bolt at the lower left in the picture?



That is the acorn nut on that side though. But the bolt head on the other side is indeed a hex head. Now that you mention it, the hex head does look funny. If I can get some threaded rod of the right size and another acorn nut, I could eliminate the hex head. Or do you mean a different bolt?

Anyway, you can see that I have the head tube bearing races in and have the fork on. I also have the crank in:



And the kick stand is on:



The kickstand was pretty rusty, but it cleaned up really well. All the chrome is actually pretty good. It isn't quite as good as it looks in the pictures, but I am satisfied with it.

The clear paint helped out also:



I thought I had some better pictures of the whole bike, but it appears I thought wrong. I got involved in planting tomatoes with a seven-year-old and things got interesting and I got confused. Then we set on the swing out back, chewed weeds, and talked like hillbillies. Yep. That is what we do sometimes. So I neglected the picture taking.

[Circa Cycles]

That's hilarious Sounds like it was fun.That's how it goes with 7 year olds sometimes.

[Houndog]

That thar is some dandy paint pardner!!!!

[yoothgeye]

You are building a bike I wanna ride, and that's the kind of bike I vote for.