Late entry, and I can't think of a good name!

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I hope everyone had a great Turkey Day! We just got back from our redneck Thanksgiving...spent the holidays riding quads and dirtbikes up in the Ocala National Forest. Absolutely beautiful up there.
Got a few more bits done on the bike, which I have decided to officially name Rat Trap. I actually did most of this back on Wednesday, but haven't been near the 'puter till tonite.

Kingplinker was absolutely right- the zip ties looked terrible, so I stopped at the local hobby store and picked up some brass strips and started playing around...

brass1.jpg
brass2.jpg


Ended up with these...
brass3.jpg


A little better than zip ties?

brass4.jpg



Next up was refinishing the handlebars-
ratbars.jpg


A few other items got whittled up-
ratbrace.jpg


Some parts were more fun to make than others-
ratheiny.jpg


More pics tomorrow!
 
Good idea on the brass.. it does look much better. Very nice fork mount as well. How did you form/curve the aluminum?? The machine turning looks very sharp as well. Should be a sweet 20 incher for sure. I don't guess a 20x3 would fit in the chain and seat stays? That would look wild.

-Stephen
 
Stephen- we have a bearing press at work, so I set the fork truss on 2 blocks of wood and tweaked it 'till it looked about right. That is pretty much how this whole bike came together- just playing around with stuff until it looked right. And it was one of the most fun bikes I've built in a while.

When I first looked at some of the bikes being put together for this build off I was blown away. I thought no way can I do something as cool as these dudes, but I wanted to try anyway. At first I was drawing a blank on how to do a rat rod bike that had the look I wanted, but then it finally hit me. One of my true loves is vintage drag cars, so here's my take on the rat rod bike...

ratright.jpg


Remember that Heineken can from my last post? Combine one beer can, a wire wheel,
some brass strips and an old Cal Custom air cleaner wing nut and you get a Moon tank.
rattank.jpg


A piece of wood, a chunk of 2" foam, some silver vinyl
and an old shoelace combined nicely to make a drag chute-
ratchute.jpg


The wheels are 70's vintage Webco Mags from one of my bmx restorations. They're about the only parts on this bike that are actually worth any real money. I think I spent a
grand total of about $14.00 on this entire build. It helps to be a packrat with a garage full of bike stuff.
mag1.jpg
mag2.jpg


I had plenty of help from my build crew- Kai, Garret, and Cory.
I own 2 of them, the other one is my neighbor.
buildcrew.jpg


ratleft.jpg


It actually rides pretty good too...
ratwheelie.jpg


I was kinda worried at first that everyone might think it was sorta stoopid to put a drag chute and a Moon tank on a bicycle, but I get a kick out of it, and my kids love it, so...why not? I almost made a set of wheelie bars for it, but the original 50's and 60's gassers that it's modeled after didn't have them so I passed on the idea.
Well, that's Rat Trap. I hope it makes some of ya'll smile...'cause isn't that the idea after all?
 
Sweet man, real sweet! I have been thinking about a moon tank like that for quite awhile, only mounted under the seat longitudinally as a tool bag. That's a great look for it!
 
i love this bike! and it just hit me, wouldn't it look cooler with the "tank" turned 90degrees? I think that would make it look more ratrod/hotrod/dragster-ish!
 
I like it!

I wanna build a 20"...someday.I cant wait for my 7yo.niece to outgrow her 20"Lowrider bike.
 

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