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It's cleaning day.
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Here's another boring update: Got the fork apart and straightened.

Back when I mounted the Felt wheel I noticed that it was off center. At first I thought the trusses and rockers were causing a problem but it turned out to be the fork. It was skewed to one side. No pictures of the process but I slid the cheater bar over each blade of the fork and bent them back to center.

Problem solved.

I just noticed how this picture makes the fork look wonky but it's just the camera angle causing a fish eye effect.
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That's not unusual with some of the blade forks. Glad you found a solution.
 
And yet more work on something that no one will see. :21:

The headset was tough to remove. I couldn't turn anything by hand as it came apart. So I chased the threads on the fork.

Everything should now spin back together like a top!
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I like the cleaning day photo. Would look nice printed on canvas and stretched on a frame. Or maybe I'm alone in that thought.
 
Thanks @ifitsfreeitsforme :) I was messing around with some filters and thought it looked cool too. You're not alone in that thought!

Just for fun I arranged everything back in the pan and took another picture after I got everything cleaned. It's not as dramatic as the first one.

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As you can see, even though it's cleaned, it still has the rusty patina on the parts that show. That's all I'm planning to do to the whole bike. Of course no amount of cleaning would make it look new so I really don't have a choice anyway. :bigsmile: Still, that's the rat look that I want!
 
I decided to give the chrome fork parts a viegar bath while I have everything apart. The rockers, bolts, springs, etc. went into a coffee can with vinegar but the springer truss needed something bigger. To minimize the amount of vinegar it would take to completely submerge the truss I tailor made a trough for it.

I first arranged some scrap wood around the perameter.
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Then I filled the void in the middle.
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Lastly the whole thing was covered with a trash bag and then filled with viegar.
It took about a half gallon to fill it. I probably could've made it even smaller if I had needed to.
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I've done this in the past to minimize the amount of OA it would take to fill over a frame and other bigger parts.
 
That is a way cool idea!!
 
The fork cleaned up nicely!

It still has just the right amount of patina but doesn't look neglected.
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I abandoned the toy airplane ornament idea for the fender but I have an even better replacement! There's not much time left in the build off so this will be the only tease that I'll employ for the build:

If you've been following this journal closely you have already seen it! :bandit:
 
The bike bowtie that was there to start with?? :D
 
Did you score or steal a WF Rocket Ray light?
 
The Renaissance Man said:
The fork cleaned up nicely!

It still has just the right amount of patina but doesn't look neglected.
View attachment 169667


I abandoned the toy airplane ornament idea for the fender but I have an even better replacement! There's not much time left in the build off so this will be the only tease that I'll employ for the build:

If you've been following this journal closely you have already seen it! :bandit:
Click to expand...
The headlight from the Western Flyer?
 
I expected that the girl's headlight would be the obvious answer based on the clue that I offered.

But no, that was a vague misdirection to start the hunt. The jet replacement is in fact in one of my previous posts, but it's not that obvious. Like any good Easter egg you have to look for it. :happy: In fact, I didn't even notice it myself until after I decided to use it.

I actually did intend to use the girl's X53 Rocket Ray but the bottom half was toast. That's the reason I bought the red Rocket Ray, to use the bottom half with it. I may come back to it later but not for the build-off.
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By the way, while we're on the subject of the Rocket Ray, here's some trivia that I found to be very interesting.*

The top half was designed to fit the existing Delta Rocket Ray headlight by Murray-Ohio’s chief bicycle designer Viktor Schreckengost.
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The special Western Flyer Super Deluxe top was styled after the early 1950's Caddilac! Can you see it?
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Pretty cool huh?!



*You can read more history about the X53 HERE.
 
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SwissGuy said:
The headlight from the Western Flyer?
Click to expand...
I just realized that you were talking about the headlight on the Western Flyer Super (I think). That's another rare and great looking headlight! But it will definitely stay with that bike. It's hard to find all of the correct parts for a Super also.
 

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