General Really old bike questions

[Ichoptop]

I know much more about the old car game but the old bike game is new to me. A guy close to me has this 1920's Master frame he wants to unload for a fairly cheap price. I have been wanting to build a board track style neighborhood cruiser. How hard is it to match parts (crank, fork and wheels) to such an old frame? Have the components changed dimensions much from the 20s to say the 50's / 60's cruisers? I dont want to buy a frame and spend the next 5 years searching for parts, I have done that with too many cars in the last 20 years.

 

[Walker]

typical crankset should go right in, you could always bring a bb cup with you to make sure. Some of those frames ran 28" wheels, some ran 26".

Looks like a nice frame there.

 

[jerrykr]

about the only thing that I can see that might be really "old" and harder to find that you'd need, would be the seat post, and I have to guess quite a bit from your picture.

If you can't find one easily, you can measure the ID of the seat tube and get some bar stock and bend your own.

most everything else should fit.

Don't forget that forks steer tubes off ladies frames are generally longer than your frame's head tube. They can be re-threaded and cut down if you have to.

I assume that if you build cars, any of this would be easily done with your current skills.

I like the frame!

 

[ozzmonaut]

With the length of that headtube, even a 60's ladies fork might fit. I just got two 50's ladies Schwinns for parts and to my surprise, the fork steer tubes were a match for men's Schwinns. Not sure why, as they usually are longer. Just measure the headtube and keep that measurement in mind while searching. I built a bare metal cruiser from a very similar frame. I made the tank from 2"x2" square tubing. Yours looks like it originally had 28" wheels. But with a 26" fork and some 1" spacers between the rear fender and fender stays you can easily remedy that and use cheaper 26" wheels. Here's mine. Between the two top tubes mine has less distance at the front than in the center much like yours. Nice frame, easy to do whatever you want with it.