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Sometimes I underestimate the power of Evaporust. I should have taken ‘before’ photos. I thought for sure the rear hub was a gonner. Now they’re both back to usability! Too bad the rims are not as salvageable. So I have to do something about that.

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Wow! It's like they aren't even the same hubs. Chrome cleans up amazing sometimes!
 
Sometimes I underestimate the power of Evaporust. I should have taken ‘before’ photos. I thought for sure the rear hub was a gonner. Now they’re both back to usability! Too bad the rims are not as salvageable. So I have to do something about that.

View attachment 212574
Any hubs with pressed-on flanges get a wiggle test before I restore or use them. If the flange wiggles, I toss the hub shell after salvaging any useable small parts.
 
I need a second rim, so today I visited a friend Who has a stash. He bought a bunch of stuff from a bike shop that closed down years ago. I didn’t find a chrome rim like I was looking for, but I found a pair of anodized gold rims.

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So now I don’t know what to do as far as a look or a theme. Originally I figured the bike would be black and white and have some chrome. I could remove the anodizing and stick with that plan. Or, I could change plans by incorporating the gold rims. Complete color change? What do you think?
 
I think the black and white color scheme could look good with the gold rims. I'm having a hard time visualizing it with the older frame. I guess you'll just have to nickel that frame. :grin:
 
Quill stems are either 21.1mm or 22.2mm diameter for 1" forks. Measure the interior width before buying something. The sizes mentioned come out to 13/16" and 7/8" diameter Imperial. Quill stems are still being sold new in both those sizes and of course there are millions of them being ridden around here in the US.
 
So the more I dig into the donor Raleigh, the less I want to use from it. Now I'm thinking of restoring it and selling it.... maybe. It means I'd have to buy a stem, handlebars, and use something else for brakes. But I'm already throwing stupid money at this project, so maybe save the Raleigh? I'd have to replace the wheels in some way. What do you think of these, being sold locally. Anyone know anything about them?

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Parts are coming in. I’ll need the spokes so I can build the wheels, which will be essential to getting the mock up started. But now that the donor bike is going to be its own project, I need even more parts! Ugh. Anyway… Blasted the frame!

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Can you see it?

To answer your question: I run a trailer manufacturing plant. So I had my guy blast frame when he blasted this hopper frame.
 
As I was piling up a parts list in my head, I wondered if there might be an old BMX bike in my area as a donor bike? I found one and picked it up after work.

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Now I’m worried that I found a gem. This is a Raleigh. Looks like it was a chrome frame with blue anodized parts. Does anyone know anything about these?
To the best of my knowledge there is no such thing as a manufactured as chrome Raleigh BMX bike. This is a replica of my childhood bike . My childhood bike was Red over chrome originally . I stripped the red off as a kid and made my bike chrome . This bike in my photo was Blue over chrome . It was stripped off for the most part when I got it. They also made a gold over chrome version . Kind of the same process as Raleigh did with their wheels and bars..
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To the best of my knowledge there is no such thing as a manufactured as chrome Raleigh BMX bike. This is a replica of my childhood bike . My childhood bike was Red over chrome originally . I stripped the red off as a kid and made my bike chrome . This bike in my photo was Blue over chrome . It was stripped off for the most part when I got it. They also made a gold over chrome version . Kind of the same process as Raleigh did with their wheels and bars..

I discovered that it’s silver paint. But I haven’t found the exact match in catalogs, but the years I have found were incomplete.
 
For anyone who may not know... 12G spokes are a huge pain in the aas, and rare enough to make them expensive. I've been waiting for WEEKS on a solution to some issues we've been having (basically, non-confidence in measurements). So... I just got off the phone with the spoke builder. I'm toss the 12G hubs to the side, get 14G hubs, re-measure, cut & roll the 14G, then get them here. @Pondo and two other guys are waiting for their wheels from me, and this has taken way too long.

Frustrating!!
 

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