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Help Support Rat Rod Bikes:

  1. us56456712

    Revenant

    Man, these old bikes aren’t for the faint of heart, their built weird and very hard to work on. Part of the problem is the deeply penetrated rust from years of sitting. When I got it the headset was frozen, the chain had stuck links and the rest was stiff to move. I’d like to see more photos of...
  2. us56456712

    Gay 90s Sentinel Rust Jackpot

    Sentinel was one of about a dozen early Mead Cycle Company brands. They used a lot of head badges. Your bike was manufactured either 1897 or 1898. The American Wheelman site has it listed for only those two years. It takes 1/2 inch pedals. It looks like a collet seat post binder. If it is, your...
  3. us56456712

    Revenant

    I’m wondering about paint. The bike is a rat, I already removed the dirt and patina. It’s been stripped down to pitted grey metal. I’m leaving the bars, crank etc grey pitted metal. The frame has a few rust pits and some shallow dents. I’m leaving the dents as battle scar character. I‘m going to...
  4. us56456712

    Revenant

    I think it probably is.
  5. us56456712

    Revenant

    The dent is out.
  6. us56456712

    Revenant

    We’ve had three summer days so far 80 to 90F. Most of the time and for the next 10 days it’s going to be in the 60s, 40s - 50s at night. I still haven’t gotten my short sleeved shirts out of the storage unit. Small craft advisory today out of the north. Flannel shirt needed.
  7. us56456712

    Revenant

    This bicycle has very thin walled larger diameter seamed tubing. The seam is brazed. It’s the way they made an all steel bicycle that weighed 22 or 23 pounds. It dents easily. There are sheets of drilled out steel brazed inside to reinforce the tubing at the ends, 1890s double butted. The...
  8. us56456712

    Revenant

    I started filling the dent with JB Weld.
  9. us56456712

    Revenant

    This is as good as I feel like fixing the dent. I’ll fill the divots with JB Weld. Good enough, perfect. Some people are craftsmen, I’m not. If I try and fix it better with filler welds I stand a good chance of making things worse.
  10. us56456712

    Revenant

    Straight Straight Not straight More brute force needed to get them parallel.
  11. us56456712

    Revenant

    The dented chain stay is still a little bent. The hydraulic jig didn’t get it all. I’m trying to take the last bit of bend out with expanding pliers. There is a crack in the chain stay that I made trying to get it straight. I’ll weld that shut once it’s straighter.
  12. us56456712

    Revenant

    The frame is paint free. All tubing is made with a brazed together zig zag seam. This is the down tube.
  13. us56456712

    Parts for the Wheelman penny farthing bike

    Take the spokes out at the flat spot, shape a piece of wood that matches the inside curve the length of the flat spot of the wheel, make a box that fits over the axles or a brace on the inside of the hub, put a small hydraulic jack in the space where you took out the spokes on the brace and...
  14. us56456712

    Revenant

    This is nuts. The vinegar soak makes it easy to remove the paint with a small brass brush. Under the paint on the chain and seat stays I found that they used the same method to braze them together as they did the fork. So far I have found no brazed long joints on the larger tubes.
  15. us56456712

    Cut and Thread sopkes ?

    Don’t try and thread your own spokes you wont be able to use them. You need a professional level shop tool for that at around $5000 new. Try and find no name spokes. This saves a lot but it’s still expensive. A Hozan is no good. A Hozan will work good enough to replace a few spokes. You have to...
  16. us56456712

    Revenant

    Cleaning vinegar is also cheap, but it’s 4%.
  17. us56456712

    Revenant

    I hate to blame the weather, but this is ridiculous, even for the UP. Low of 40F, 25 mph winds, 35 along the Lake Michigan and Superior shore. The leaves aren’t all the way out yet. There is a lot of light green, yellow and red as a lot of the leaves haven’t made chlorophyll yet. Some species...
  18. us56456712

    Why would anyone want to make ratrods?

    That’s a definition of Frankenbike that I wasn’t aware of. Locally a bike made from parts is a Frankenbike. To us, your description would be called a maggot. It gets muddy, even here, as a rat, maggot or Frankenbike is some times called a Jukari bike, Finglish for homemade motorized work machine.
  19. us56456712

    Revenant

    Archimedes principal, put the jet sled on an incline and use displacement to raise the level. The vinegar has been used many times, I store it in gallon jugs outside hidden under bushes. It freezes in winter. It’s loosing its potency but I can use it twice more. You can see the dark iron...
  20. us56456712

    Why would anyone want to make ratrods?

    The silver one is made from 9 cut up bikes.
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