ORBO Frito Bandito: El Fine'!

I wanted to add a little flair to the Bandito. After some searching, I found this Native Southwestern looking hand towel on Amazon. I will def tone it down with some patina sauce to get closer to the aging on the frame and parts.

After a few ideas,I settled on the rigid wood tank shape, and I will decoupage the fabric onto it. Fun little project for our last days before we move to Frito Drive.



2 x 4 from Home Depot. Traced the outline of the tank from the inside of the top tube and straight bar.



Sanded the surfaces and rounded off the edges. Then a trial fit in the frame.



More to come tomorrow.

Bandito es El Fine'!

I 'wrapped up' my tank project this morning; literally. My wife, Mrs Job, helped me with the blanket material yesterday, brainstorming how we would attach it and get a mimic pattern on both sides of the tank. She ran a double stitch through it this morning while I went out to prep the work area.






I decided to use Mod Podge glue to adhere the blanket to the wood buck. It's designed to work with both wood and material, and I leftover from a puzzle project earlier this month. I used a brick in between glue applications to weight the fabric.






It was a combination of scissors, razor blade, glue and some tack nails to get the fabric attached. A challenge for sure. Let's just say ol OddJob probably won't be doing this style of tank again!

In the end, it came out pretty good. Here are two photos, one before any 'faux tina' aging process, and one after.

Before....



and After....



My patented way to fade new material or a brightly colored sign, is the tried and true Rustoleum Satin Strawflower spray paint from about 4 -5 ft away, and just a few very light passes. This color is really hard to find, as I think they are fading, er, phasing it out. I did find one of our valley Ace Hardwares with some in stock. It was worth the 25 min round trip this morning!





This color works exceptionally well for fading colors in the red and brown color families, as it just takes down the intensity without changing the hues much.

And then I hit the trail out in front of our place for some final photo potential shots, and a ride video. Enjoy! Ole!

metalchewy said:

Love ride videos. Great work on the southwestern tank. Looking fun!

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Thanks MC! It was fun to jump in on the ORBO. One of my favorite bikes to build is a klunker, and these are so much fun on the desert trails as well. It'll be a fun bike to have down here.

Pondo said:

Tank came out great! Great ride video too

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Thanks Pondo! I'm glad I added it to the build. Gives it that flavor of my build theme, and of it's locale.

Wildcat said:

The tank and bike came out great!

Those frames have a chain clearance issue because of the design of the chainstays. They were made for larger cogs and chainwheels that allowed the chain to clear the stay. I never tried to adjust the stay on mine but from yours I see it can work.
If you have any chain slap, a 52 tooth chainwheel with a 22 tooth cog will give you almost the same gear ratio as you have now. 56 and 57 gear inches.

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Yeah, I figured it was my chainring and cog size that was messing with the frame. But I already had the 17t and had just bought the 36t so I 'massaged the stay a little, and used that extra half-nut to space it over about 4mm and it works great. I really like the smaller ring for off road clearance, and the look has a bit of a modern take to it.

Glad you like the tank! It was a fun 'OJ' kind of project.

Did a little rustified RaT-ification to some of the shiny bits the past couple of days. Trying to tie it all together.

New, untouched seat post clamp.



Clamp dipped in Bandito burrito sauce.

Man, I’ve really got to up my patina game.

+1
I really enjoy OJ's rusty crusty sauce game.
I hope you enter the main buildoff this year Oddjob

Thanks guys!

idiotboy said:

seat clamp matches the frame perfectly!

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Thanks Schultzie!

LOVE the tank OJ: as I’m relatively new here, is this the first bike you’ve built NOT at the back 40?
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Nope. I built a couple previously, one in 2016 which was an Anything Goes build off. And then a couple of klunkers in consecutive years.

I refer to it as the BACK40 Southwest.

Well we are all settled in on Frito Drive. And it's a good thing I got my build finished before we got here because there was plenty of of fixing / recreating to do. On Thursday night I tried my hand at pickleball for the very first time. As a former high school and college tennis player I figured well that some of the hand eye stuff would translate. And as the games progressed II was starting to get into a groove. then my mind thought I was 20 again and my body which was not went flying through the air on a net dive, ramming my right shoulder into the net post and dislocated it. As the saying goes "we don't bounce like we used to".

So I'm out of any bike building or guitar playing or even bike riding for probably the next 3 to 4 weeks. Even then I don't know what kind of extensive damage there was so we're hoping for the best.

one cool thing I did find out Is my laptop has ' voice text', So I'm composing this entire comment just using my voice. which is kind of cool.