1965 Hercules Step-Through

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Karate Chicken Industries

Karate Chicken Industries

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While I have quite a few irons in the proverbial fire, I picked up a another Round Tuit. It's going to be a low-gear 26" coaster brake lightweight townie. After building up my daughter's 1960 Hercules in a similar fashion, this one will probably weigh sub-20 as well.

Before:
20210806_111345.jpg
 
You are discriminating, cottered cranks have rights too!
They just need some extra attention and care, and you need to know how to remove the cotter without screwing it up.
Never remove the bolt when you want to hammer one out.
Open the bolt up to the top of the cotter, then give it a whack.
But i agree, even that, frustratingly often fails.
 
Cottered cranks... love/hate relationship there. I feel supported by the reactions above.

Its pretty weird, back in the days, they knew mechanical engineering (believe me, I know). But I can't understand the cottered cranks.
Or we can turn this thing around: Nowadays we can't install cottered cranks properly anymore with our chinese steel :21:
There are some beautiful cranks out there, like the one above!

jbWBNyZ.jpeg


Back on topic:

Cool bike @Karate Chicken Industries I love the lugged frame! Are you going to leave the paint as is? Or highlight the lugs e.g. and create a custom paintjob?
 
karl said:
You are discriminating, cottered cranks have rights too!
They just need some extra attention and care, and you need to know how to remove the cotter without screwing it up.
Never remove the bolt when you want to hammer one out.
Open the bolt up to the top of the cotter, then give it a whack.
But i agree, even that, frustratingly often fails.
Click to expand...
I use a ball joint splitter back the bolt off a bit and crank it off. It will pop right off.
 
One cotter must always face the opposite direction from the other. For years I couldn't figure out why the cranks wouldn't align. I'll vouch for cottered cranks as being good, but they aren't made in alloy, just steel so that isn't as efficient as the common three piece set. From my 70's Hercules 10 speed:
barry-hercules-04_800.jpg
 
Eight months later and with some deft angle grinder work the other day, the drive side BB cup is out. So stoked to finally have that freed up, I set to sanding the paint off and got quite a bit done before getting called off on an urgent matter.

Love Me Some British Steel

20220707_170956.jpg
 
Got at it today, first stripping the rest of the paint with a wire wheel.

20220710_114954.jpg


Did I say I love me some British Steel? After the wet sand, I was tempted to just clearcoat it, but got to painting instead.

20220710_173854.jpg


The head badge was not serviceable, so a search is on for something to put in its place.
 
I prefer the look of the twin bar, but paint restoration or painting them is quite a bit more work. There were two slight imperfections in the paint work yesterday and if/when the wind mellows out I'll get to finishing the royal blue portion. I went through my sticker collection last night and made a task out of separating stickers out that might look cool on a head tube. In the process, I found something fitting that was created and sent to me from a former OG NJ BMX character I met riding fixed gear bikes in Lost Angeles. Small World, his Film Professor at CU Boulder BITD is a close friend who remembered him being in his class.
 
Yesterday saw success in getting the frameset paint imperfections resolved. Before masking off the tubes to paint the lugs the second blue tone of the planned paint scheme, the paint needs to cure for a few days. In the meantime, the Araya VP-20 rims for the wheelset are getting cleaned, prepped for paint and painted. Hoping the weather cooperates to get that done today. Parts collection has been ongoing and instead of using the salvageable OE parts, it's going the lightweight route to keep the weight down and rideability higher.
 

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