One the most important things you can learn to do build a wheel it'll save money and likely time(most bike shops will build wheels when there is free time) and give you the freedom to use various hubs and rims and it's oddly satisfying.
12/71 Cotton Picker
- Thread starter barbedwire
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I get that! I may try to learn to respond a junk wheel before I dive into doing it on the Cotton Picker. I'd hate to do something like that with this and have it make me miss the deadline by getting overwhelmed. It's def something I'd like to learn tho!
Tonight I putzed around a bit and removed the tires off the wheels and polished some pieces on my new bench buffer. It's doing a decent job but some of the parts still have a rusty look to some areas. It seems like the chain guard side of bike in terms of springer fork and sissy bar for some reason are weathered more/chrome is deteriorated. I'm going to stop by a local polishing shop to see of they think they can get any better results. I haven't been able to get out to my LBS to drop off my wheels to be serviced so hopefully first thing Saturday I can do so. I also got an update from Joe Crawford letting me know my 69 Stingray seat arrived and he found some rust that will need some welding work to touch up but the new seat should be done by end of week! I can't wait to see that final result!
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Just got an email that my new seat is finished!! 
Pro tip: If it's already bare metal, and you can't get the piece plated, it's going to corrode no matter what you do. But polishing will help, and the smoother it's polished, the longer it will look better. So... if it's already bare, like those crank arms sand them smooth. Down to like 600-800 grit. THEN polish them. That's how I went from this...
To this....
To this....
5) try not to have some wise guy standing around in your shop trying to learn lacing and cracking jokes at the same time. It's too distracting and makes the job take 3x as long.
Man, he does nice work!Just got an email that my new seat is finished!!
Beautiful work. I would love to be able to manage beautiful results like that!
So couple updates:
I've been doing a tad bit of polishing here and there but between my arm being sore from assisting a friend with an 8 ft truck cap and the results of my polishing still not being what I hoped, I've admittedly lost some steam this past week motivationally. Good news is I now have both a new original front tire and new reproduction (90s) rear tire in my possession and can't wait to see how they look once installed!
I ordered rear brake pads and the three shifter decals figuring I am not hurting anything by removing the old worn away decals on shifter and freshening it up with new ones.
I had taken the wheels to the bike shop and they suggested I clean them up before leaving them to be serviced. Probably not a bad idea, I was just figuring they could be working on those while I was still polishing other parts. Then by time they'd be done I could polish them. But nonetheless I brought them back home after they pulled the gears off back wheel for me so I could get to the chrome dust shield behind it. This allowed me the chance to soak the wheel in evaporust too. It's going to take some work but I'll get it as shiny as I can without removing the spokes. In the future I may tackle that once I can experiment on some other wheels. The shop expressed some concern over the elaborate nature of having a drum brake so I don't know if it's worth me taking to them to "regrease" and what not if they're going to upcharge me for working on something they feel is complicated. Rear wheel shouldn't be a big deal tho as it's usually around $45 for them to do one of those.
I'll share some pics of tires next post. Until then hopefully I can make some better gains this week.
Last but not least I always enjoy adding a bicycle plate on my bikes and I have a custom one coming for this that I can't wait to reveal!
I've been doing a tad bit of polishing here and there but between my arm being sore from assisting a friend with an 8 ft truck cap and the results of my polishing still not being what I hoped, I've admittedly lost some steam this past week motivationally. Good news is I now have both a new original front tire and new reproduction (90s) rear tire in my possession and can't wait to see how they look once installed!
I ordered rear brake pads and the three shifter decals figuring I am not hurting anything by removing the old worn away decals on shifter and freshening it up with new ones.
I had taken the wheels to the bike shop and they suggested I clean them up before leaving them to be serviced. Probably not a bad idea, I was just figuring they could be working on those while I was still polishing other parts. Then by time they'd be done I could polish them. But nonetheless I brought them back home after they pulled the gears off back wheel for me so I could get to the chrome dust shield behind it. This allowed me the chance to soak the wheel in evaporust too. It's going to take some work but I'll get it as shiny as I can without removing the spokes. In the future I may tackle that once I can experiment on some other wheels. The shop expressed some concern over the elaborate nature of having a drum brake so I don't know if it's worth me taking to them to "regrease" and what not if they're going to upcharge me for working on something they feel is complicated. Rear wheel shouldn't be a big deal tho as it's usually around $45 for them to do one of those.
I'll share some pics of tires next post. Until then hopefully I can make some better gains this week.
Last but not least I always enjoy adding a bicycle plate on my bikes and I have a custom one coming for this that I can't wait to reveal!
I’ll post some “how to get into the bearings” pictures from my drum brake. It’s essentially the same thing.
Got the paint on the frame shined up as well as I think it is going to turn out. I'm happy with how it's looking compared to the dirty yellow look it had upon purchasing. I'm anxious to see it in sunlight with all the chrome pieces installed. Also put some elbow grease into the fenders and headlight my dad had as a kid. The headlight is clearly cheap chrome, but it shined up well enough and for a bike that is original and not perfect i feel it fits the refurbishing of it well. The fenders came out relatively decent aside from the end of the front fender has the gray non-chrome look to it like the springer fork does. Again not sure why that area of the bike appears worst off that rest. The rear has some kind of reflective sticker strip on it that will not come off, so I am just going to leave it alone. Lastly here's a pic of the tires, an NOS front and a NOS rear (from 90s Krate). Good enough for me!!
Hey!
I haven't disappeared, just not getting the garage time over the last week I'd have hoped for. Throughout the week I did score a true Stingray Speedo that I'm waiting to arrive by Tuesday, so I am thrilled I will have the correct piece even tho the plain one I had was a great deal. This one was too tho I'd say! I like the mileage on it since this is an original bike and altho the true miles are unknown, I'd say it's fitting!
Also been spending what time I have had polishing the rear wheel, spoke by spoke. I think it came out extremely well overall especially once mounting a repro Stingray slick to it! I am going to drop it off at the bike shop tomorrow to have it regressed and trued. Then hopefully by next weekend at this time I will have some of the major pieces reassembled! Stay tuned!
I haven't disappeared, just not getting the garage time over the last week I'd have hoped for. Throughout the week I did score a true Stingray Speedo that I'm waiting to arrive by Tuesday, so I am thrilled I will have the correct piece even tho the plain one I had was a great deal. This one was too tho I'd say! I like the mileage on it since this is an original bike and altho the true miles are unknown, I'd say it's fitting!
Also been spending what time I have had polishing the rear wheel, spoke by spoke. I think it came out extremely well overall especially once mounting a repro Stingray slick to it! I am going to drop it off at the bike shop tomorrow to have it regressed and trued. Then hopefully by next weekend at this time I will have some of the major pieces reassembled! Stay tuned!
Everything is looking good on this build! I'm assuming from your experience that you already have 'Schwinn approved authentic decals' lined up for that frame that turned out really well.
I was too old for the Sting Rays and Crates when they first came out, but have enjoyed the couple that I had a chance to 'refresh' with a vintage clean type of build. Yours makes me want to tackle another one!
I was too old for the Sting Rays and Crates when they first came out, but have enjoyed the couple that I had a chance to 'refresh' with a vintage clean type of build. Yours makes me want to tackle another one!
Glad you're liking what you're seeing! I don't plan to change anything on the frame as I am wanting to keep the original aspect of it intact. The paint shined up really well just from a number of hours and elbow grease and the Decals are all in good enough shape for me. I am probably going to change the Decals on the shifter tho since there somewhat worn and doing so I don't feel affects the originality too much.
I picked up my back tire/rim tonight from bike shop and for $42.40 that replaced all the bearings inside since they were in need and tried it up. I'm pretty happy with that price. I elected not to take the front wheel in for servicing as it spins really smooth and didn't want to have them up charge me to work on it since they seemed to imply it was more complicated for them to service than rear.
Also got my Stingray Speedo in today after a stressful day yesterday of discovering the post office temporarily lost it lol... it's pretty clean in person but I'd love to be able to see how hard it is to take parts like the needle from my $15 exercise bike style and swap into this one.
I'm really hoping to get parts heading back onto this this weekend. Would like to concentrate on the handbrake Levers so I could get the grips on them that I bought plus the grips on the bars once hand Levers are installed. Then I could mount the bars to frame and get Speedo mounted. After that I plan to spend a little more time on crank to sand some of dull areas down and get a better shine. Once that and sprocket are installed do the pedals that cleaned up pretty nice, particularly the black rubber looks like new on them. If I could get that far by end of weekend I'd feel pretty good!
I just saw this. I was thinking of this last night while I was lacing, thinking back to how I laced your wheel wrong and didn't know how because we were talking and I goofed something up. I thought to myself "This is so easy, how did I mess is up? Oh yeah... I wasn't paying attention because we were having a good conversation! lol)
Today was fairly productive. I got all the bolts and nuts and few brackets polished and/or wire wheeled on the bench grinder. I got the brake lever brackets positioned and tomorrow will get the grips on, install bars to bike, and mount speedo. I am also hoping to get back wheel on and position sissy bar, seat, seat post but unfortunately one of the specific nuts foe the sissy bar bracketry disappeared on me while using the wire wheel on bench grinder. I heard two clicks and assumed it had hit thr top then settled at bottom of channel, bur after removing side cover it was nowhere to be found. I was directly in front of machine and it didn't fly or and hit me, so if a random nut drops out of thin air into one of your garages while you're working it's from by bike and it teleported lol... so now I need to source one of those out. Last pic shows the type missing now.
Question about the sissy bar brackets, should they be bent like mine are or be straight?
I may have a big find tomorrow in the works and if I get to pick it up I will share asap! It'll be an awesome score if so that will really help me. Stay tuned. For now here's my finished work for the day.
Question about the sissy bar brackets, should they be bent like mine are or be straight?
I may have a big find tomorrow in the works and if I get to pick it up I will share asap! It'll be an awesome score if so that will really help me. Stay tuned. For now here's my finished work for the day.
The Renaissance Man
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Looks great!
It's Murphy's Law that the one lost nut is a special type that can't be found on a shelf at a hardware store.
I hope that you can find it.
Keep looking, it's in there somewhere!
It's Murphy's Law that the one lost nut is a special type that can't be found on a shelf at a hardware store.
I hope that you can find it.Keep looking, it's in there somewhere!
Well I didn't touch the Cotton at all today.... because I was on a road trip snagging something special for it.
A month back I saw a listing show up on Marketplace for a girls 26" Schwinn that looked neat, but upon looking closer I noticed it had a pumpkin headlight on it. Unfortunately the seller got back to me saying it was pending pickup then disappeared.
Yesterday I jumped on Marketplace while enjoying my morning coffee and to my surprise the same listing was at the top of a local yard sales page FB group. So I wrote the seller after he posted like 11 mins prior (seems to be theme of my luck with this project) and he said last guy no showed and it's mine if I want it. So today I took the fam to a fall festival and since it was in the direction of the seller's location I made a detour for it! Guy was super cool and I am glad I got it because I'd like to to a teardown and thorough polishing of it once I'm done with the Cotton and hope that my wife will think it's cool enough for her to enjoy if we go for a bike ride.
All was not storybook ending though as the price I felt was a really good deal for a bike in this condition let alone having the headlight, but I discovered upon arriving that it was missing the lens. I know there's repro lenses tho so not too disappointing, but I am torn if it's worth paying an extra $50 for an original? Before I do that tho I want to verify it'll even work, as here's some photos of the inside. In the worst case would it still be suitable to install it with a repro lens in worst case just as a cosmetic piece if not functional? And is it acceptable that this one doesnt have the orange side markersni have seen on other Krate pumpkin lights?
A month back I saw a listing show up on Marketplace for a girls 26" Schwinn that looked neat, but upon looking closer I noticed it had a pumpkin headlight on it. Unfortunately the seller got back to me saying it was pending pickup then disappeared.
Yesterday I jumped on Marketplace while enjoying my morning coffee and to my surprise the same listing was at the top of a local yard sales page FB group. So I wrote the seller after he posted like 11 mins prior (seems to be theme of my luck with this project) and he said last guy no showed and it's mine if I want it. So today I took the fam to a fall festival and since it was in the direction of the seller's location I made a detour for it! Guy was super cool and I am glad I got it because I'd like to to a teardown and thorough polishing of it once I'm done with the Cotton and hope that my wife will think it's cool enough for her to enjoy if we go for a bike ride.
All was not storybook ending though as the price I felt was a really good deal for a bike in this condition let alone having the headlight, but I discovered upon arriving that it was missing the lens. I know there's repro lenses tho so not too disappointing, but I am torn if it's worth paying an extra $50 for an original? Before I do that tho I want to verify it'll even work, as here's some photos of the inside. In the worst case would it still be suitable to install it with a repro lens in worst case just as a cosmetic piece if not functional? And is it acceptable that this one doesnt have the orange side markersni have seen on other Krate pumpkin lights?
So in short I made acceptable progress this weekend with getting the smaller bits shined up I've been wanting to, and feel my road trip was worth the time away from working on the Cotton because of the end result having another bike to work on and the pumpkin light to add to the Cotton since I have been looking for one anyways. Hopefully I will get to assembling over the course of the next few evenings. Thanks for keeping up on this journey with me so far!
Well the headlight took a swim in Evaporust tonight so I'll check results tmrw after work. I gave up tonite on working after I couldn't get the left side hand brake lever to tighten to bars. Right was a piece of cake but for some reason the left one is being a true PIA. So of course this is because I hoped to get the grips on tonight, but since I haven't been feeling well over the weekend anyways I took it as a sign to chill out and relax. So tomorrow is another day
Hello again everyone,
I've been away for a couple weeks as me not feeling well nor up to doing anything in the garage ultimately resulted in me heading to some doc appointments and determining I have lymes disease and that had been affecting me greatly over the last month. Now that I am being treated for that I finally felt well enough yesterday to do some work on the Cotton and made some headway I had hoped to have made a couple weeks back.
Yesterday I soaked all the bearings in carb cleaner and once I observed all old grease was no longer visible, I applied plenty of new grease and installed the crank assembly and headset assembly, as well as the authentic and correct style of Stingray Speedo like what this bike had visible signs of previously having installed at some point in its life.
I am very pleased with how the bike is looking and can't wait til it is all together to see how it looks outside in natural light. Back when i fiest started this I was not too thrilled with the shine of the paint, but I tell you what I notice a huge difference now and that's without even doing any side by side comparisons with the "before" pics because since it isn't completed yet I haven't taken any "after" pics yet haha I'd have positioned it better for these quick pics this evening but it is still a little tough to be lifting much.
Couple of questions if anyone knows the answer to:
1) with the headset, I hand tightened the top and bottom beveled nuts that hold the bearing cages into frame cups. Then I attached the hardware on top the frame to hold the fork "T" piece (idk what it's technical term is). Tightened these but not too much. Despite packing the bearings full of grease, I feel the turning radius is too tight. If I turn one way repeatedly, it feels like everything tightens. If I keep turning the other everything loosens. I'm not sure what I am doing wrong? I don't want to overnighten and ruin any bearings. Is there something different with a krate bike that I am unfamiliar with?
2) Should the washers for back wheel be installed with flat side against frame or the rougher side towards frame? Currently I have them mocked up with flat side flush against frame.
I've been away for a couple weeks as me not feeling well nor up to doing anything in the garage ultimately resulted in me heading to some doc appointments and determining I have lymes disease and that had been affecting me greatly over the last month. Now that I am being treated for that I finally felt well enough yesterday to do some work on the Cotton and made some headway I had hoped to have made a couple weeks back.
Yesterday I soaked all the bearings in carb cleaner and once I observed all old grease was no longer visible, I applied plenty of new grease and installed the crank assembly and headset assembly, as well as the authentic and correct style of Stingray Speedo like what this bike had visible signs of previously having installed at some point in its life.
I am very pleased with how the bike is looking and can't wait til it is all together to see how it looks outside in natural light. Back when i fiest started this I was not too thrilled with the shine of the paint, but I tell you what I notice a huge difference now and that's without even doing any side by side comparisons with the "before" pics because since it isn't completed yet I haven't taken any "after" pics yet haha I'd have positioned it better for these quick pics this evening but it is still a little tough to be lifting much.
Couple of questions if anyone knows the answer to:
1) with the headset, I hand tightened the top and bottom beveled nuts that hold the bearing cages into frame cups. Then I attached the hardware on top the frame to hold the fork "T" piece (idk what it's technical term is). Tightened these but not too much. Despite packing the bearings full of grease, I feel the turning radius is too tight. If I turn one way repeatedly, it feels like everything tightens. If I keep turning the other everything loosens. I'm not sure what I am doing wrong? I don't want to overnighten and ruin any bearings. Is there something different with a krate bike that I am unfamiliar with?
2) Should the washers for back wheel be installed with flat side against frame or the rougher side towards frame? Currently I have them mocked up with flat side flush against frame.
