CWC-1 Updated 7/30/10 Build Finished!

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Re: CWC-1 Updated 6/13/10

JoKeR63 said:
Road Master said:
Well, as luck would have it the sprocket that came with my new wheels was 19 tooth - tough to make a skip tooth out of that one. Off I went Saturday to the LBS and no problem - he had a 20 tooth in stock. MARKED every other tooth and cut through half way from both sides with my smallest diameter cutting wheel on the Dremel tool and then used the same attachment to deburr. I took the camera outside and it was so humid the lense fogged up.

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I didn't know this would work, good news!, now I can use that skiptooth sprocket and chain I have! Hope you can easily remedy that chain line issue, can you put any spacers between the sprocket and the bearing cone?


The link that "rico" posted here took me right to exactly what I need - it's a rear sprocket cupped an additional 1/2" which may sound like alot but keep in mind where the tire rubs the chain is half way towards the front sprocket which would only give me an extra 1/4" of clearance at that point and that would work. I've never tried this chopping every other tooth trick but I have read it here on RRB. My only question all the way along was how this will function mechanically in the short term and long run with the skip tooth chain being much wider than needed for the rear sprocket. Only riding it will really answer that question. FYI - the above sprocket I purchased from my LBS for $2.00 so even if it doesn't work well I'm not out very much money. Good luck!
 
Re: CWC-1 Updated 6/15/10

Road Master said:
Hope you find something more to your liking here today.

that's a lot better, may i now lead you further down the path towards OCD?
if you check page two of my thead, you'll see that valve are also exactly inline with the tyre text :shock: sad i know, but there you go :roll:

additionally, i would prefer it that the RHS pedal is at the two o'clock position :wink:

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Re: CWC-1 Updated 6/21/10

I bought some repop curved fenders but didn't like the way they looked on this bike. They just didn't fit the lines of this build so I'll keep them for a different project. Three months sounds like a long time but if you are working and doing chores (like mowing) the time flys by. My biggest goal is to build a good solid bike that rides really well that I intend to keep and finish on time. Finishing on time is the most difficult part.
 
Re: CWC-1 Updated 6/22/10

I worked on the head badge today. It's brass and tarnished but I wanted it to look kind of like antique bronze. A friend told me to try Tobasco Sauce. Well, it did take layers of tarnish off with each application but I got impatient and was using a lot of Tobasco Sauce. So next I tried Tarn-X. After a few coats of that I was really starting to not like the color - kind of coppery - so I switched to my old standby - Brasso. One application with a white t-shirt and a little rubbing gave me the desired effect but a little too clean looking. If I had started with the Brasso I probably would have been closer to the color I wanted. But this did leave darker areas in all the nooks and crannys which is what I was after. Threw some clear coat on it and now I'm ready to install.

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Re: CWC-1 Updated 6/28/10

We've had a lot of 90+ days here all in a row and what little progress I made I haven't posted yet. I put the head badge on - under direct sunlight you can't see the darker areas very good but looks great in any other king of light.

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The bullet style headlight I'm definitely keeping but the position I had it in would cover up the head badge so I flopped the bracket over. I'm also toying with the idea of using hub caps. Originally I thought I'd paint the chrome black but after I put them on I wasn't so sure. I'm going to buff out the fender and rear carrier braces and then clear coat them. They all run down to the axles and the chrome hub cap kind of ties them together. I'm also thinking screw the hub caps all together because they are a little large in diameter. But I do like the idea of the green reflectors on the sides. I welcome all input on this one. I have 5 sets of these so I can afford to paint one set black just to take pics to compare.

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Next up is the saddle. I finished the Messinger I tore apart on this post earlier. Although it does look better with a grab rail it's still a little short on looks and is not that comfortable to ride on longer trips. The Persons that I have had on for awhile looks good and I would add a crash/grab rail to it but it too is not comfortable for me to ride longer distances. I threw this Troxel on - not sure how I feel about the looks yet and have not test ridden it either. The Troxel has a closed frame near the front so with the 90 degree post I can't slide it back as far without hitting the frame in proper adjustment. I need a custom post with the top parallel to the ground. Still working on this one but I'm running out of time. Only have one month left to paint and reassemble and of course I've never painted a complete bike before so I anticipate a learning curve and maybe some setbacks. I'm dreading this part - unfamiliar territory. Here we go.

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Re: CWC-1 Updated 6/28/10

Road Master: I think your bike looks fantastic just the way it is now! The primer colors look great. You could clear coat it and call it done! I would ditch the hub caps, though. Really nice work, sir.
 
Re: CWC-1 Updated 6/28/10

awesome build! makes me wanna get my butt in gear and working on my old western flyer.

very well done!
 
Re: CWC-1 Updated 7/5/10

Time to paint! This will be my first bicycle paint job. I've read and talked to a few people about paint removal - brass wire brush, aircraft paint remover, sandblast - but the one I decided to try because on paper it seemed both fast and cheap was "Oven Cleaner". I had heard if you spray it on a bike that is covered with house paint and let it sit about an hour or so it will loosen up the house paint so you are left with the original paint. But I wanted all the paint off so I read the instructions on how to clean an oven overnight and went for it. I sprayed it on one side of the chainguard just before dusk and looked at it about 9:00 the next morning. I thought it did nothing - it still looked black like I had painted it. But then I hit it with the hose and instantly everything was gone. Originally it was all chrome and then painted over but everything was gone right back down to the chrome. This was the first piece I tried and if they all go like this I'll be elated. Next piece - the frame.


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Re: CWC-1 Updated 7/5/10

i hope the rest goes the same way. but, the reason being the chrome guard came so clean is it may not have been primed with self etching primer. :? i have used oven cleaner on many bikes and it never seems to touch the original paint, but i never let it set over night either. hope it goes well, keep us updated i am curious! :wink:
 
Re: CWC-1 Updated 7/6/10

First coat of oven cleaner on the frame removed the grey I had sprayed on & the black underneath completely. In places (probably overlap areas as I did one side at a time) it took off the original finish coat and some places the primer underneath right down to the bare frame. I put the second coat on one side this morning and I'll hit the other side this evening. I'm using the cheap Wally World oven cleaner. This is a learning process for me. John Larkin here in town gave me the number of a place that sand blasts all the parts from one of his bikes for $25. I know that's cheap but I couldn't guarantee I'd get the same price as a new customer and I don't have $25 right now to spend on it. I had previously purchased a couple cans of the oven cleaner. After that I'll finish by hand if necessary. Anybody know what the shelf life is of a quart of self etching primer? I've got one I never used that I bought in 1994 from an automotive supply paint store. This should be interesting.

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Re: CWC-1 Updated 7/6/10

bighit said:
the bike was gray and looked almost done. now you are removing paint and i didnt see a reason why. color change?

Originally I just grabbed whatever $1 can of paint was laying around and tossed them on there just to give the bike some continuity because all the parts were different colors and I found it distracting which is how I ended up with 2 tone grey and black. I liked the color scheme so well that I decided to paint it those colors but glossy. Now I know a lot of RRBers like the flat primer look and I do too but I had different plans for this particular build. I still intend on going with the same basic color scheme but the black will look totally different in glossy, so much so that it will look like a different color. Sorry guys, but this bike has got to be glossy. There were so many different layers of repaint over scraped areas that it looked pretty nasty so I wanted to go back to the original frame and start anew.
 
Re: CWC-1 Updated 7/9/10

The second coat of oven cleaner did remove more paint, but not even all of it. I tried one of those 3M paint remover wheels in a drill but it wasn't aggressive enough for me so I switched to the palm sander and then a wire wheel in the hard to get spots. This is definitely the last one I do manually - I'm all for the sand blast. Not only was this time consuming but I can't get it as clean or get all the tiny nooks and crannies. All part of the learning curve.

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Re: CWC-1 Updated 7/9/10

Are naked pictures allowed on here :shock: Can't wait to see the rack on that baby 8) Looking good Robert :mrgreen:
 
Re: CWC-1 Updated 7/9/10

I've got the same headache with my frame. I'd like to find someone with a sandblaster, the local shop wants 100 bucks to sandblast. I'll try to get it done with the wirewheel this weekend, but it's hard to get motivated.
 
Re: CWC-1 Updated 7/9/10

Road Master said:
This is definitely the last one I do manually - I'm all for the sand blast. Not only was this time consuming but I can't get it as clean or get all the tiny nooks and crannies. All part of the learning curve.

agreed. before you try, you think 'how hard can it be' then once you've done one, it's to the sandblasters every time. although to be fair, i don't think i even got as far as you did. the first frame i tried to strip went to the sandblasters in the end. :lol:
 

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