Direction Unknown

[Son of Kradus]

Day 9
Gave the bike a good test run this morning, a clicky clacky noise from the derailleur had me return home and give the thing a slight tickle with a phillips head srcrewie, 2nd shot she went great, good use of all 8 gears, seamless quiet transition and most importantly....No shock rebounding through the bike when hunkering down. the welded spring has completely transformed this machine into a really comfortable riding bike, I managed to retain the normal seating , pedalling and steering geometry from the original bike, its not too heavy and those $10 bars are as comfy as ever!
Heres the last pic before the strip down.

I cut off a bit from the rear of that down tube and its helped smooth the curve on it , Ive left the hole there for a light with a lens cover, as I said....much later!
I tidied up a few of the worst looking welds, there was even a couple spots I missed altogether and then flap sanded the whole thing, ive run out of time today so i'll give it a quick hit with the good old hand and sand paper tomorrow then i'll throw some paint over it!
Anyway then hard yards are done,
that concludes the end of day 9

 

[Son of Kradus]

This is really like a DR Frankenstein bike. Perfect jigsaw puzzle that has come together from bits n bobs.

That got me thinking....so I went and checked.
No less than 8 LOL

 

[Funkme]

That got me thinking....so I went and checked.
No less than 8 LOL

 

[Son of Kradus]

Wow I forgot how tedious and time consuming it is to paint a bike and I only done it 3 weeks ago LOL.
Burnt oll the stickers off and most of the paint, wire brush gave it a uniformed cammo glow! was tempted to run with a clear over this but nah!!
It took a good 3hrs of burning and sanding with 600 wet n dry to do the frame, forks and rear triangle.

So to me I rekon its an honest 1 week to do a decent paint job ,if I were to do it properly, perhaps even 2 weeks for show class.
sadley I havnt the time to do that, nor the funds to race out and buy $150 worth of gleaming mettallic 2k , thinners and undercoats etc etc, then clears, that cost can run into the hundreds.
For me it comes down to good old fashioned eye trickery, well an attempt at such anyway.
So we can see the way im running with the paint, I couldnt find a match for that red on the BMX so I found "Flame Red" from the local hardware store, im throwing hammertone black across the bottom half!
ive never really tried to intentionally do a two tone paint job, the drift trike I made had a 2 tone but only coz I ran out of paint half way and picked up with another!
its come out ok, I used a spare can of red epoxy metal pro paint as an undercoat! sorta worked, saved on the flame red thats for sure.
So its rushed I, know, it makes me wanna spend the time to get it really right!, I think ive left it a bit late for that!

And YES, we have another massive Blunder!
Painted the entire frame and stood back, I felt great, I turned around and theres the forks and rear triangle still sitting there waiting for paint! By this time i'd run out of black, I had enough red epoxy pro left to give the fork n triangle a good undercoat. so it stays like this till tomorrow, gotta have a snooze soon!
See....it does happen. we paint and we forget, it takes over all conscious thought LOL

And i finished work early again last night so I stripped the wheels and am looking at painting the rims, I have a master plan to sit and patiently mask EVERY SINGLE SPOKE. about at least half to three quarter way! we'll see what happens, it is fun after all!
And that my friends concludes day 10.

 

[Son of Kradus]

Day 11 today and last night I had no work so didnt sleep yesterday arvie, I went and grabbed some more black hammertone, I returned and finished the forks n triangle and threw another couple coats of black on the bottom rail then the last coat of red!
It came out great, the undercoats definately hide the welds better but im not overly impressed with the color choices, in fact I dont like the red at all, I had heaps of blue and had this wild idea that the wheels would look good blue, I got carried away and did the seat post too, as it was scratched and horrid, the spring and then the head set got the treatment too but whats happened is ive tried so hard to bling this ive detracted from the look im trying achieve!
I replaced the crankset for a shiny example that was hiding and tried its best to be not found. I then had a nap and woke at the ungodly time of 8.30pm, so after a snack I went out to the shed and assembled the wheels.... I ended up retiring at 3am Grrrrr, anyway I had an idea of running some silver over the red, went and bought another can of hammertone silver and put the bike in the sun ready for a last minute strip n paint,
while it was sitting in the sun I sorta fell in love with my hard work again and have decided to just run with this and see where it stops... it is after all "Direction Unknown"
sorry bout the cluttered pic, im running out of time and its too far to drag this out!
That was day 11

 

[Ulu]

I like this more and more, I might stripe the wheels with white to relieve all the blue, and do the seatpost red or wire-brush and use clear paint.

 

[Son of Kradus]

And here we are at day 12 of the "Direction Unknown" project!
And true to its name the direction is still unknown, After reassembly I took it for another test run, she performed great! albeit a bit stiff from new sort of!
The big bonus today is after it sat in the sun yesterday ,and I decided to leave it as is, it has turned out fantastic, I found that with adding all the smalls it's actually taken the pop off of the red paint! yes its still there in all its ugly glory but its not so dominant now with the other stuff happening. I said to the mrs "i'm so glad I didnt make the extra work for myself" I still have a new can of silver hammertone, ahhhh well, that'll be for the next one LOL.

I also decided to run with an idea from a member on here, "Pondo" suggested the name "No Fear" as this is the name of the BMX/Mtb hybrid that the bottom rail was comprised of. the rectangular piece running from the front of the bottom rail to mid way, till it thins out, this is the bottom tube from that bike! and it had the name "No Fear" written on it so yes Pondo, ima gonna take your advice, its not the name change, I still think "Direction Unknown is a great name because up until now, the very last day or 2, it still has no direction at all, no motif, no tribute aims etc, its just a bike made from thrown out bikes from the kerbside with some of my bits and an awful lot of love!
So the name "No Fear" will be on a plate and it serves as an attitude statement, No fear of any reprisal, be it not liking the bike or having no fear riding around logan city QLD on a bike thats painted in newcastle knights guise!!! that can be a sad mix, so theres no fear of footy reprisals either! ( unbeknown to me I inadvertedly painted this bike in the color of the Newcastle knights rugby league) I am a brisbane supporter and not newcastle ha ha ha ! only aussie s will understand this! a bit like living in Green bay but painting your bike in LA rams colors! yeah so no fear of that LOL
So I made up a simple bracket and thats attached to a piece of hard polyethelene, this red stuff i had for yrs, this is so if i hit something then the plate will flex and bounce back! the plate idea worked and it sort of makes the bike!

ok ok so you'll be able to see in the last pic (above) that if i select the biggest 3 gears the chain hits the plate and rubs, this is a suttle adjust that has to be done!
im also not like the blue......theres too much of it!, when I wake tomorrow im going to remove the seat post, wet n dry the blue and then the red anodised off and ill spend some calories giving it a great rub with polish and see where it turns up! thats right, we gonna add some shine back to balance things out! its only very slight changes from here on, im also thinking on on doing something with that headset, if making it shine is too much then making black is easy and if i get it right I may just pull this off!
the pic sort of helps explain where im comming from!
And that my friends concludes day 12

 

[Son of Kradus]

I like this more and more, I might stripe the wheels with white to relieve all the blue, and do the seatpost red or wire-brush and use clear paint.

Believe me, I almost did a USA tribute with this , it did cross my mind! I'm a born and bred westerner, yes I live in the southern hemisphere but you, us (AU), England etc, we all the same as in "Allies in the search for world peace"
All that was needed was whiite walls and a few white stars here n there, the union jack would've certainly been there as maybe a small....very small pic of King charles! LOL. maybe even harry and his mrs might,of made a special celebrity appearance some place on the bike or what about a sticker with Joe and Donald facing off with a fighter jet flying over head! all these things flew through my mind once I painted it and stood back!

 

[Son of Kradus]

Day 13 and its minor adjustments day!
Last night I polished the life out of that red anodised seat post that was painted blue, well ive never done one of these and was flabergasted at how pure and deep the anodise is! I used a petrol soak for 10 minutes and the blue paint came off easy enough bu that red in the post is....well....man I gave up after an hour, Plus the cricket was booming! so it was cramps while watching your fav sport, sorta takes the fun out of both things really so I stopped at the point where I feel its needed!
In the first pic ive removed the bars and head set, you can see the post still has a tinge of reddish pink but sort of gets more predominant as you move down towards the top tube where its still very red on the inner channels but silvery on the high ridges! this gives a nice flow into the polished silver towards the top....well I rekon anyway LOL... either way its an improvement on the overuse of blue!

The new plate needs a lift of about 1.5", you can see it works well and gives clearance but in my haste to make I didnt have the chain running off the biggest cog (lowest gear), so when I selected the lower gears for headwind or the slight grade we have on the test track the chain began to rub on the bottom of the plate!, see the oil marks ! (run out of chain lube, using motor oil). so the simple fix here is to extend that small bracket thats screwed into the top of the rear triangle main support. see how the red polyethelene works, if I hit some thing , either riding of moving about the yard/shed, the bracket has good flex it can bend out the way and and flap back into place, its hard enough and dosnt lose shape! dosnt wobble rediculously when underway!.... and its red....just like the plates trim!

Next up is the Blue head set! while turning out better than anything ive painted , visually, it was a disaster, just too much blue, learnt a real good lesson here! just didnt get the colors right but im battling this ailment and we'll sort it out!
So ive become sick n tired of sanding, the petrol trick worked on the seat post so why not the head set, and with that the blue paint began to fall off! it'll then get a soapy wash and rinse then dried and put in the sun for painting. I just poured petrol over it, left it for five minutes, repeat, repeat,, took about 30 minutes but saved my arms from sanding again!, it will still get a light key in sand before painting!

so there will be a few hrs break while i do this work and i'll post up the conclusion of day 13 later!

 

[Son of Kradus]

Ok so I was busy with this head set, the petrol worked well, so good in fact I decided to not paint it but rub it right back and polish the buggery out of it, turned out fantastic, with a tiny bit of factory black left in the very far corners its come up great.

I chucked it on the bike and its just meant to be!, it still would of looked good black but im glad I spent the couple hrs on it to get it here!

I decided to go easy on myself and in an effort to get this thing across the line ive just packed out under the bracket to lift the plate a bit, its worked and i can now select every gear!

In the above pic im annoyed at myself for letting my guard down right at the end with the packer and tech screw being galvanised but they relally are inconspicuous so im not gonna lose sleep over that part of the puzzle.
Anyway the bikes still to undergo one last official test ride and hopefully get a pic or 2 for the finished thread!
works beckoning so im off for my afternoon nana nap!
only managed a few pics from around the yard but she's turned out great!, considering it was only 2 weeks ago I grabbed those frames off the kerbside and threw them in the back of my ute! and few donated parts from me and tons of love we have yet another "Son of Kradus Cruiser"!

Im lovin the plate!.... Thanks Pondo!
While still not happy with my choice of red ive managed to sort of get over it and am happy to leave everything as is, the decision to polish the head set and seat post were an absolute god send, I learnt a lot with that mistake and we can only look forward to much better and prettier painting, just have to get that "Topunder Coat" mentality out of my head!
And that my friends concludes day 13!

 

[Son of Kradus]

Today is judgement day....D day or the last straw if you like!
This mornings test went great! I Think ive actually built up a bit of stamina over the last week with all this test riding, Every thing went well, I didnt stop either going there or on return! I did have a good 15 minute photo session, most got binned but a few remained!
Anyway this has been a whirlwind effort, to think it was only 14 days ago I found the frames for this bike on the road side! theres been wins and loss's all the way through, design flaws and sadness were still a part of it but its what comes out at the end!
Even though the bikes direction, as in design, color, shape etc etc was never really set in concrete, the single goal of this build was first to be involved of corse and to build a stretch bike with normal tyres with a normal riding position.
Managed to pull it off.
I'll be honest and say theres a couple things on this im not happy with and 1, is the choice of red, and 2, the spring failure, I really wanted this to work but its set up only works on an MTB, with a higher ride height. but it looks good and pretty ...but it does nothing...zilch, nada, zero! ahhhh well.... did I mention it looks pretty LOL.
Thanks to all who followed!
Heres "Direction Unknown" AKA, "No Fear"

This last pic im considering for my entry pic. I have a slightly better one with a straightened wheel, I also have another actually in the skate bowl so i'll weigh both up!
And with this last pic we say goodbye to this thread, Thanks all who followed again. I hope in some sort of strange way someone out there will pick up an idea or tip off this build to help them with thier bike building journey, however long it may be!
And that my friends concludes day 14,.... and the project!.....Take care everyone and best of luck to all other competitors!

 

[Pondo]

So the name "No Fear" will be on a plate and it serves as an attitude statement, No fear of any reprisal, be it not liking the bike or having no fear riding around logan city QLD on a bike thats painted in newcastle knights guise!!! that can be a sad mix, so theres no fear of footy reprisals either! ( unbeknown to me I inadvertedly painted this bike in the color of the Newcastle knights rugby league) I am a brisbane supporter and not newcastle ha ha ha ! only aussie s will understand this! a bit like living in Green bay but painting your bike in LA rams colors! yeah so no fear of that LOL

That's cool, I dig it.

that red in the post is....well....man I gave up after an hour

I haven't tried it but lot's of folks like to use oven cleaner to remove anodizing.

Im lovin the plate!.... Thanks Pondo!

Yeah, I like the plate, it's looking cool. And it really was a No Fear build!!