making a camelback

[ditchdigger]

I have fallen in love with camelback bikes, The scwhinn speedsters and in particular Snydurs JC Higgins. I have a few canitlever frames laying around, got and idea and thought "Why not?"


One "Manhattan" beach cruiser frame ready to sacrifice itself.

A few minutes of cut off wheel action and what do you know. If you squint a bit it kinda looks like the Higgins.

I probably should have stopped here, but once I let the pinch in the rear seat stays bother me I couldn't stop thinking about it.

I pulled the removed cantilever tubes out of the scrap bin and went to repurpose them

One down and here is number two

Not sure how I feel about the look. It is much better than that awful pinch but it is a little modern looking.

That is as far as I got today. I need to finish stripping the frame and prep it for paint. I have some audi dolphin grey 2 stage left over from an old car project. The bad news is that I found out my powder coating oven is too small to fit the 26" wheels so I need to rethink my plans for them.

 

[Jake Sensi]

HMMM..GREAT IDEA!! I'LL BE FOLLOWING SO..GET TA BUILDIN'!! PEACE

 

[SailorMac]

Dude, is that a Ciao in the background?

 

[ditchdigger]

It is indeed

 

[SailorMac]

Super Coolio. I had a Garelli SSXL top tank that I sold about a year ago.

 

[ditchdigger]

Spent some time on the lathe and mill knocking out a few pieces that I welded together to form my new stem!

The stem itself is turned from scrap 4140, the forward portion is some oval tubing 3/4"X1 1/2" that the steel yard had on sale a few years back so I bought a bunch thinking it was interesting. Down to just 10" left And I spun some DOM down reasonable OD, machined the clamp and TIG'ed it all up.

Yes I did make a Pott's mod bolt :wink: I have an idea I think will be pretty cool.

It isn't nearly as heavy as it looks and when I get some powder on it I think it will look great.

 

[ifitsfreeitsforme]

That is the best looking stem I've ever seen. I want one.

 

[ditchdigger]

PC'ed the stem today

I am pleased with it. It's something different.

I also adjusted the dropout spacing for the 5spd wheel and mocked it up to see what it is shaping up to be.

These are not the bars I am using. I don't know what I am using yet but these were cut up to donate extensions for my BMX cruiser bars. They just happened to be what was nearest to me.

 

[ditchdigger]

You know what sucks? Waiting for paint to dry/cure. I am too impatient and as soon as it looks good I want to start assembling it. There are more than a few fingerprints to be buffed out now

I tried to tie the stem design into the rear of the bike by using more of that same oval tubing with through holes.

I modified this old fork to give it clearance for the 160mm rotor, hold the caliper and spread the load up the side of the fork.

another shot of the stem looking pretty sweet if I do say so myself

And the whole bike

I painted it Audi Dolphin grey using PPG Omni base/clear because I had it laying around. To apply it I used a preval sprayer. They are pretty awesome and cheap. Cheaper actually than buying enough thinners to clean out my HVLP gun the 4 times I would have needed to with this project.

Now I need to find a hub for the rear that can be adapted to disc brake. My original plan was to powder coat the hoops of the wheels tan/cream to match the stem/seat post/cranks but now I am thinking about going all black wheels with cream tires.

Open to suggestions on the saddle and bars. I still don't know what to use.

 

[SCHWINNRAY69]

Very cool! :wink:

 

[scott brownsey]

i have been trying to figure out a cool stem for a build im doing man this is just what i want its so cool i have to have 1 great job .i think the bars r cool if u want to sell the bars let me know thats kind im lookn 4 thank you :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

 

[MplsCoaster]

Hey Ditchdigger,

Good looking bike!
Very creative.
Looking forward to updates

 

[scott brownsey]

i sure like the bars in the last few pic what r they n did u cut them down if you not going to use them i b intersted in them thank you

 

[ditchdigger]

I cut them down to make a quicky seat post and they have just been sitting on the work bench since

http://www.ratrodbikes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=42664

I received the crank spindle from porckchop but the missus has been unwell and in the hospital so I haven't really touched it for a week. I got the crankset powder coated and rebuilt some pedals, so they are ready to go on.

It took all the resolve I could muster to not drill holes in the crank arms to match the stem. Google returned too many images of broken drilled cranks for me to feel comfortable doing it. It would have looked fantastic though. 8)

 

[scott brownsey]

i have drilled half holes in crank arms n they look real cool .if you would sell the bars i would like to buy them thank you

 

[ditchdigger]

It's been a while! Where were we?

Despite my better judgement I let myself spend a bit of money on the bike. First was some Velo Orange porteur bars. I just had to have them and then I stumbled across a "can't pass it up deal" on a new Brooks B17.

I needed to match the grips to the saddle so I went down to the leather merchant and dug through their scrap bins with the B17 in hand and found an almost perfect match.

Cut to size and drilled. I could have used an awl and punched the lace holes that way but drilling the holes just made the whole arts and crafts project that much more manly.

After having heavy cotton thread break on me 3 times I went looking for something tougher and found this

It worked amazingtly well. The rubber texture kept everything tight and and made the whole task easier than it was with the cotton.

Stitching it up is a 2 needle job. I found zipties helpful to keep everything in place as I worked

One down. The second was finished in only 20 minutes

On the bars

And comparing the color to the saddle.

Just a few more bits to source and I can ride this thing!

 

[bikes4life]

I really love this bike, if I had the money I would comission you to build me one just like

 

[Hammond Eggz]

Oh man, good stuff! Some more pics showing the whole bike, please!? :mrgreen:

 

[Gdcast]

Oh man, good stuff! Some more pics showing the whole bike, please!? :mrgreen:

Yeah please! This thing is a beauty!

 

[rico]

looks GREAT