Class 2 - Silver Angel

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Joined
Dec 1, 2012
Messages
1,365
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Location
Whangarei, New Zealand
Silver Angel (name might change)

00_SilverAngel.png


The story:

This bike was purchased earlier in the year and was originally going to be cut up to modify the frame of my WBO bike, Retroped. However, when it arrived and I looked at it, I straight away thought of my great-great-niece who will turn 6 years old towards the end of November. I decided then that I’d build it up for her. Here’s what it looked like when it arrived...

01_WhenPurchased.jpg


Initially, I had no idea what it was... apart from being a bike. It had no handlebar and the seat was obviously not right… it was just some ordinary modern style seat in bad condition. It had obviously been repainted a few times over the years.

When my niece mentioned a Czechoslovakian bike that my great-niece had when she was little, I got the feeling this wee bike might be from there too, so I searched online but found nothing.

I started to search for clues on the bike which lead to me stripping it down. On the head tube, under all the paint, was a foil sticker. I tried to get the paint off to see what was on the sticker, but no luck. However, under the sticker was good condition paint that could be original, and the steerer stem, being hidden inside the head tube, also has what could be the original paint. Under the sticker is metallic blue and on the steerer stem is a metallic aqua colour... was it two-tone? Still no clues as to what make the bike is at this point.

02_HeadTubeColour.jpg


03_StemBulgeColour.jpg


Then I looked under the bottom bracket and there’s a serial number there, but it didn’t help much. The next step was to look at the rear wheel. It’s a coaster brake and they often have identifying marks on them. Sure enough, on the reaction arm was the name ‘favorit’, so I looked up that name online and found a site that said… “Velosteel/Favorit single speed coaster brake Hub made from the old sachs /sram torpedo machinery when they were sold to the czech republic”. Aha!

A bit more looking and I found a post on a forum that mentioned… “I have a set of these steel wheels with a Favorit Coaster Brake hub. I remember Favorit from the 80's when I worked at my LBS which was a Favorit/Rapido dealer here in Canada.”… so I searched for ‘Rapido’ and found it. (strangely, doing the search again now only reveals one of the images I found previously... silly internet!)

I believe the wee bike is a 1960s Rapido Super Deluxe.

What’s quite amazing is that when I got it, since it had no seat or bars, I thought of getting a banana seat and ape hangers to make it a muscle bike… and that’s exactly what it was originally.

Here’s a photo of an original one...

04_RedRapido.png


found here… http://www.ratrodbikes.com/forum/index.php?threads/show-your-muscle-bikes.11599/page-5#post-428787

This one’s in the aqua colour like I found on the steerer…

05_AquaRapido.jpg


So anyway, I decided I’d go ahead with the muscle bike theme and started making plans, such as what colour to do it.

At first I thought I’d do it the original aqua colour and looked for that colour in local shops, but it’s not available. I asked my great-niece what colour she thought would be good and she gave me a few options. I decided to go with silver with the seat and handlebar grips being the chosen colour... but what colour?

I knew I’d have to get the seat and other parts from overseas as it’s not often available locally, so I searched online and ended up buying the banana seat, sissy bar, apes and grips from bikeworldUSA...

06_BikeWorldParts.jpg


As you can see, I chose purple.

More parts have been ordered and are still on the way to me.

Glen.
 
You are like me, always trying to track down the history of a bike...
Nice little score you grabbed thr.
 
Here are more photos from the dismantling I did earlier in the year...

07_BottomBracket.jpg

08_BottomBracket.jpg

09_FrontHub.jpg

10_FrontWheel.jpg

11_RearHub.jpg

12_RearWheel.jpg

13_Frame.jpg


This is a bike I got recently for the tyres...

14_DonorBike.jpg


I wanted to use the pedals too, but they are the wrong size thread. Some other parts might get used such as the chain, front brake, stand, and maybe even the wheels if the original Rapido rear coaster brake can’t be fixed. The Rapido wheels have only 24 spokes each while the donor has 36, so I can’t just swap over the hubs.

The Rapido was originally a ‘convertible’ with a removable top tube to make it a boys bike. That top tube is missing so I’m thinking about making one so that this bike can be ‘boys’ or ‘girls’ if need be. I might use the top tube from this flipped upside down...

15_DonorBike.jpg


Glen.
 
The coaster hub looked a bit... well... broken. So I needed to take it apart to see if it could be fixed and what parts might be needed...

16_HubParts.jpg


The inner bearing races are bad so I searched online to see if I could get replacement bits. I found them, but I was seeing very expensive shipping costs... when shipping was available :rolleyes:. So after a lot of searching and emailing people, I ended up finding the complete internals on ebay and they are on their way from Germany. :whew:

Glen.
 
This is not a destination build, it is a journey build. The historical background gathering, the demolition and discovery of more work and more searching, the double checking and unearthing of the name / make / model etc....is all part of the journey!

Glen you have a real gem here. And your purpose for this build is well-meaning and from the heart. The holiday season has begun early for you this year! RaT oN~!
 
So, the first major problem is that the stem was stuck like a sticky thing in another sticky thing and wouldn’t budge. It was obviously rusted in there creating a bulge on the fork steerer which can be seen in this photo...

17_Forks.jpg


(bulge can be seen better in the 3rd photo of my 1st post)

The second fork in the photo above is the donor for the steerer transplant surgery :nerd:

I cut both forks resulting in this...

18_ForkRepair.jpg


I wanted to keep as much of the bike original as possible, but some of the stem was cut in the process making it a bit shorter and probably unsafe. Also, it would need a shim to fit the apes I have for it and I don’t have any shimmy stuff (feel free to start humming that 'Shimmy Shimmy Coco Bop' song to yourself at this point).

So I’ll use this handsome fellow instead...

19_Stem.jpg


A chrome one would be nicer, but this one’s here and a chrome one’s not. :rolleyes:

Interestingly, the stem wasn’t actually rusted in there as I thought it was, but instead had just been really really over-tightened... hopefully not by a little girl because that would be really really embarrassing on my part. :blush:

Glen.
 
Yeah, those 'little girl tightened' stem bolts are nasty. :21:

Glen, you succeeded in ending my night (10 pm our time here) with a good chuckle!
 
Cool build, nice purple, Im sure she'll love it.

That chainring is great, I would like to find one.

Thanks, yeah and the chainring cleaned up well too :nod:

Before...

22_ChainRing.jpg


23_ChainRing.jpg


After...
24_ChainRing.jpg


25_ChainRing.jpg


I’ve got the fenders, chain guard, and rims to try and clean up next... when I finish stripping and sanding the frame.

Glen.
 
Started to prep the fork steerer for surgery yesterday and noticed this...

26_ForkStump.jpg


Do you see it? Look at the aqua colour on the stump. Now look at the fork crown... it’s blue. I scratched back the aqua on the stump back to blue underneath. What this tells me, my dear Watsons, is that this bike was originally blue but then repainted aqua professionally... possibly at the factory. Why? Did someone specifically order an aqua bike and they only had blue left? Who knows!? o_O

So leaving you to ponder that mystery, all the evidence was destroyed as the donor steerer got surgically stitched to the old stump...

27_ForkRepair.jpg


Just a couple of sutures to hold it in place. :nod:

I also got the frame stripped...

28_FrameBare.jpg


All ready for some priming and painting. :nerd:

Glen.
 
I got some good weld on the stem repair...

29_ForkRepair.jpg


Then I scraped the paint off the fork... oh, I forgot to mention previously that one of the colours that this bike has been was purple :13:

I kid you not, here’s proof...

30_OldForkPaint.jpg


So it seems that this little bike sent me telepathic signals to go with purple for the seat and grips, because when I ordered them, I hadn’t started stripping and had no idea purple was under there. Spooky o_O

Glen.
 
I wanted to get one of these 20” Duro whitewall tyres for the back of this bike...

31_DuroHF841.jpg


So since they’re not available here in NZ (surprise surprise surprise :rolleyes:), I went onto the bikeworldusa site and checked it out, but US$12.99 + shipping of US$22.40 = NZ$54.94... so that’s out. :(

Oh well... the tyres I have will do.:nod:

Glen.
 
No shim stock? :39:
Don't you have 1 beer can on your bench?
(or even a sodee pop can?)

Carl.
 
"This is not a test. Should an actual test occur, please go to the nearest photo gallery for an image of the fork. Again, this is not a test."
 
"This is not a test. Should an actual test occur, please go to the nearest photo gallery for an image of the fork. Again, this is not a test."
a127036b6b541b2ac67ef83e123b8c3d.jpg


Gesendet von meinem K00E mit Tapatalk
 

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