As a welder, I had fun watching you learn about all that heat. Grinding everything smooth rather than bondo is worthy of the extra labor and your beautiful finished bike reflects all that work.
Awesome build for ANYONE, much less a first time scratchbuilder!
You have earned the attention and kudos!
Yeah. I'm mostly annoyed he screwed me out of a bunch of stuff AFTER the work was done.
You are 100% correct in the fact we are .... lucky to get a chance like this at all.
FAR too many developers these days would have simply sold it off at scrap prices with no regard for the history
I agree. There was untold thousands of dollars in original vintage bikes left to rot under the Memphis sun.
God only knows what was REALLY here when the doors were finally cracked...
That Aussie was a slimy ....... and knew FAR too much about his bikes for my liking.
I'm waiting for some of them to start showing up online and out west...
Patina and history like this was not sold cheap and WILL show up eventually.
I fully expect this shop finally opening up will substantially change the market for old bikes.
Especially pre war skiptooth stuff, which is what...
I still have more stuff waiting for love too....
Here's some pics of the shop as I found it:
This pic shows the fraction left of original roof high pile after 5 containers removed:
Pile was originally covering all floor area and 15ft high or more.
Kind of...I got in to Memphis Bicycle Co. after the store was closed after last owner died.
Literally TONS of vintage bikes piled out back from5 decades as a bike shop....
I did some painting for new owner and got a couple truckloads of goodies for my trouble. Unfortunately, the guy pried off...