FINISHED! The White Rabbit ("late i'm late i'm late i'm....")

[order99]

Well, another build-off come and gone, and i'm too broke and too busy supporting myself as an amateur Luthier on Ebay and Etsy to participate. No matter, I have my 1965 Schwinn Aristocrat to comfort me on late evening rides, and starting in August I will have work driving cars for a dealership and extra cash, so i'll wait...



Or so I thought, before a local bike dealer stops by with a truck full of dumpster parts. It seems that my neighbors kids went to his shop for some bling (lights, bells, streamer) and told him about the crazy man who gave them their hand-painted brazed frames, so he donated some smashed and cracked frames and some cosmetically damaged bits and bobs...and so IT IS FATE THAT I PARTICIPATE in BUILD OFF 10!

(glances at calendar, notes July 29)

AAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!

No matter! I have tools, will and daylight-also, COFFEE. Late late late, my ears and whiskers I am....oh wait, there's my theme!

Here we begin with an untwisted frame-the vinyl sticker reads Kent but the serial number is obscured-it has been covered in what appears to be a 'hide the rust' schoolbus yellow...I remove the stickers and braze an extension to the seat tube...



Hopefully this will give me a wheelbase short enough to stuff into my 1993 Ford Festiva and take to nearby Emerald Isle, while allowing me enough leg room to enjoy pedaling it-a sort of one-speed Japanese commuter if you will. Also, I hate open tubes, so I inserted two bolts to braze it shut, grind round and add more metal to the drop=out welds:



Here are some parts from a Bratz bike-the Ape hangars, duct-taped banana seat and fixings (sadly the frame and wheels were a twisted ruin:







I used a Rustoleum appliance paint on the Apes, bits and bobs and the Springer fork and left it to dry-by rights it needs a solid week to achieve maximum cure, but a full night and day should be sufficient to handle and assemble. the paint I used on the frame cured within three hours though-how odd, I didn't know 'Evinrude' was a color...





Having lost daylight at 8.30 PM I sat down to post-and realized that I had no photo account...Imageshack account awaaaaay! And then I was too tired and went to bed.

DAY TWO-Oh Lord it is July 30 EEEEEEEEEEKKK!!! Okay, don't panic, the COFFEE pot is near...okay, let's go!

I had some vinyl stickers my Dad had thought to decorate his truck with-he decided on a different set and I took the old ones off his hands because-hey, free stuff right? They don't look too bad on this semi-metallic grey-blue sort of paint:





I remove what duct tape I can from the seat (not much, it's on goooood) and cut of a pair of jeans I outgrew many years ago (I save my old clothes for cleaning rags and such, but I think this rich blue denim was made for greater things) between the spray-on adhesive and the pulling and the clamping, I was able to apply the denim over the tape itself with nary a wrinkle:



All right, now I need a set of cranks-wrong size, wrong size, wrong size, nope, nope, no no no no....



YES!!!!!



Okay, gotta book-it's mid-afternoon and I want to finish this build...it won't hold a candle to some of the work i've seen on this board, but it will be MINE! AHAHHAHAHA, Mad they called me, MAD I SA- wow, better cut down on the COFFEE-

(slurp)

After the Build that is.

 

[The Renaissance Man]

This will be fun, good luck!

 

[order99]

All right then, rehydrated and ready to install the springer fork-I have no idea why they would dumpster this part...

Oh. Oh yes I do-somehow, there isn't enough pipe on the forks for the rest of it to fit. Once the bearings are in place and the fork is in the tube, the retaining nut needs an extra eighth of an inch to grip...I wonder if the tube was cut for a bike and they cut too far?

Oh well-sorry Baby, but Daddy needs his Angle Grinder, promise i'll make it quick. So much for my lovely paint...

Okay, the retaining ring for the fork is still over half an inch thick-plenty beefy. Now we need a stem-and out of all the stems I have only one slides in perfectly. I ease the handlebars in, tighten the square bolt...and the square bolt rounds off and begins to twist in the stem. AND I DO NOT HAVE ANY MORE.

Screw it. I'm BRAZING THAT SUCKA IN!


Handlebars are tight and cool enough to handle again-time for a quick respray:



No overspray-good. Now to pick out some wheels and get a roller while the new paint dries to tack. Hmm, two tacos with nice white tires, two decent wheels with nice tires and crunchy bearings, three decent chrome wheels that will not turn, with decent OH DEAR LORD WHY DID THEY THROW THESE WHITEWALLS AWAY? Why would a LBS not salvage these babies? I've even got four perfectly good 20" tubes that hold air, guess i'll save my new ones for repairs down the road...

At last I find a perfect front and a perfect rear wheel-sturdy,smooth, bearings silent as the grave-and they are even perfectly trued! I don't know why anyone would toss these-unless of course they hate the pink rims:



I, however am secure in my masculinity and don't care...and if anyone asks, they are Salmon.

The sun is still up, I thank Heaven for long summer days as I move towards endgame. The Pile 'O Chains yield two really nice single-speed chains and two more that I can soak in Gandads's patented 'motor oil and transmission fluid' bath and reclaim for later use...I break one, remove three links, install, add wheels, seat, bolts and a pair of cork grips:



Done! A quick coating of lacquer on the grips and the denim seat cover for waterproofing-and i'm taking a freakin' break! Pics to follow before sunset...

 

[order99]

OH LORD THE SUN IS SETTING! Soon the vampires will...uh, I mean i'll lose my lighting, Wow, must have gotten dehydrated there, hold on....(sluuuurp!)

Okay, i'll eat later-let's give the White Rabbit some Glamor shots for the Finished folder:










And then I grabbed a much needed sandwich, the sun went down, the Grips and seat were dry and I took her for a spin.

Performance-White Rabbit is as responsive as her namesake-maybe a little too responsive. Between the short wheelbase and the Ape hangers a new rider could easily oversteer, but a relaxed arm, and a slight adjustment to the handle bars for a more forward lean took care of the issue pretty quick. The finished bike sports a set of cheap Radian head and tail lights-and while there are much better products out there I wish those better lights would duplicate those theft-resistant hex nut fittings which mean the potential thief must at least rifle through a hex key set to take them...

White Rabbit also passes the Ford Festiva test, fitting in the hatchback without removal of either handlebars or wheels.

Possible improvements:
1) After the Almond coat is fully hard-cured (roughly 6 days) i'll do a wet-sand with a 600 grit on the handlebars and then a clear coat.
2) I'll also add a front brake just as I did my Aristocrat-I like having an extra brake.
3) The stem I used was bent, resulting in a quarter-inch deviation between handlebars and fork, Doesn't effect performance at all but i'll find a new one later, either black or chrome to break up the almond pattern.

All in all, not a bad build. After seeing all the wonderful talent on this board i'm probably shooting for dead last place-not that I care. On the other hand:

Labor-less than seven hours total.
Price-$0.00
Tomorrow I intend to ride White Rabbit over to the LBS that left part of their dumpster in my yard and do my Happy Dance at them!!!

 

[LukeTheJoker]

Great work! Amazing amount of detail you managed to fit into your very short build!
You probably spent more time typing your posts!

Luke.

 

[horsefarmer]

Bike came out cool and I respect thrifty (cheap!) as I am too.
But I did have a time trying to view all your pics (some never showed) - they seem to be really big size (pixels) maybe next time see if you could change settings? Really awesome tho!

 

[Kroozerdave]

quick recycling there!