Murray JetCruiser

[Indyjps]

Good eye for parts selection, this is a great looking build.

Check out these grips, all available in tan- Cult Vans, Cult Dehart, S$M Hoder. All are flangeless, Ame tri's are clasic if you want flanged grip.

Skinwalls with comp 3 or snakebelly tread would look great. I cant find anything out there less than $50 with shipping. Wear the tread out on those whitewalls, until you find a deal

 

[ParkRNDL]

It's been WAAAAY too long since I have devoted any time to this build, but I finally took the next step this morning. I wanted to use scallops to get a vintage look, so I made up some oval stencils on the diecut machine:

I also made up some lettering that looks similar to what I've seen on Murray tanks from the '60s:

Had to drag out the old math skills here. If the tubing is 1" OD, then it's exactly 3.14" in circumference. So I made each oval 1.625" wide, figuring that's a total of 3.25" and allowing for a little overlap at top and bottom.

I usually screw up when trying to eyeball stuff like this, but I got lucky this time. The points and lettering seem pretty well centered.

I also made up stencils of old-school Murray logos for the forks.

I didn't document this well, but I sponge-daubed around the edges of the scallops and the lettering before hitting it with the spray bomb. I think my rationale was that what I sponged on would get tacky and keep the spray from bleeding under the stencils.

I am usually that guy who messes up paint by taking off the masks too soon and getting a fingerprint or smudge somewhere, but it didn't seem to do a whole lot of harm here.

The middle of the Y got boogered up and will need to be touched up, but other than that, I think it looks pretty good from a distance. Not bad for my first attempt at simple scallops. Next up: faux truss rods...

 

[ParkRNDL]

Good eye for parts selection, this is a great looking build.

Check out these grips, all available in tan- Cult Vans, Cult Dehart, S$M Hoder. All are flangeless, Ame tri's are clasic if you want flanged grip.

Skinwalls with comp 3 or snakebelly tread would look great. I cant find anything out there less than $50 with shipping. Wear the tread out on those whitewalls, until you find a deal

I love the Vans grips. I have them on another bike I put together recently, I will probably get another set for this build. I have a couple sets of tires here I may try out soon, but I think I like the skinwall idea too.

 

[Jake Sensi]

I'm diggin' the flow

 

[kingfish254]

Nice work on the stencil masking!!

 

[ParkRNDL]

Looking at this thing, I realize that now it DESPERATELY needs a headbadge. I am thinking about trying my hand at making something interesting. Anybody know where to get 1.5 x 3.5 blank aluminum tags without having to buy 25 of them? Or have you used some other method to make a headbadge? Or maybe you have a cool old Murray headbadge you'd part with?

 

[RustyGold]

If you have a heating and air conditioning shop around your area...just drop by and ask to buy a couple small scrap pieces, and they will probably give them to you.

Also, a roll of aluminum roof flashing is probably $10-20 and will provide enough material for dozens and dozens of badges .

Your scallops and lettering really change the whole vibe of the bike...very cool!

 

[Indyjps]

Die cut machine, very cool. Ive been messing around with decals on laserjet. Theyre - OK. Diecut stencils are much nicer.

 

[SoulGarageOH]

Impressive work on those stencils


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[ParkRNDL]

Tried my hand at faking up a set of truss rods. The top mount was easy; I had a couple of these old Schwinn headset pieces around:

And the bottom mounts are battery terminal lugs:

The rods themselves are just brake/fuel line (I think 5/16) from the local auto parts store. Here's where I screwed up: I just bent them over a 20" rim from memory without looking at pics for location and radius of the bend. What I ended up with is way too big and loopy.

I will try to bend these to look a little better, but at $3.50 for a 5-foot length, I won't feel too bad if I have to go buy another and start over.

I also added some seat tube lettering. I was waffling between putting the name on both sides of the seat tube or just the front, but cruising through pics of old bikes it seemed like the front is more common.

I was a little concerned about using that American Strandie Cruisers sticker at first, because I don't know the exact year of this frame and I thought it might be an early Pacific-era made-in-China Special. But then I noticed this and it was all good.

 

[ParkRNDL]

Much better after a few minutes of bending and cutting and fiddling with them. Now this is more like what I had in mind:

 

[The Renaissance Man]

The scalloped paint job looks great. Really adds some character to the frame!

The improved truss rods turned out nice also.

 

[Jake Sensi]

LOOKS FACTORY!! GREAT JOB SIR!!

 

[OddJob]

Nice work on the custom fork support braces....

"In Rods we Truss" ~ OJ

 

[ParkRNDL]

Mail call!

 

[ParkRNDL]

So this thing needs a headbadge. I would love to have something like one of these, but I'm trying to keep this low-budget (or at least limit what parts I put money into) and these go for like minimum 40 bucks each on Fleabay.

And maybe I'm cheap, but it offends my sensibilities to spend 20 bucks on a sticker like one of these. And if I did, I'd want to put it on a thin piece of metal so it would look like a raised badge and not a sticker.

But the one on the left is simple enough that just maybe I could fake something close, in the spirit of Rat Rodding and doing it yourself and for cheap and using what you have around. However, it seemed to be a pretty daunting task to get something to come out looking decent. I took the suggestion from @RustyGold up above and checked out Lowes for roof flashing. Turns out you can buy 4 inch square pieces for less than 50 cents. So I bought a few and gave it the old college try...

My first attempt, just playing around with it, made it pretty clear that it's very difficult to get a good clean rounded cut, even if I traced it out first.

So I figured maybe I could get something with straight edges to look good. Sure enough, I can cut a rectangle to look much more straight and even than an oval. And I should have taken pics of the process, but it kinda fell together really quick and I didn't think to document it.

Anyway, I cut a 2" by 3.5" rectangle, curled it around a small piece of tubing to get the right curve, and laid out a very rough plan:

I had to tape it to my kids' wiffle-ball bat to support it while I worked on it. I spray-bombed a black rectangle in the center to show through the cut-out MURRAY letters. Then I used the Cricut to cut the white rectangle with the letters removed and the red and blue rectangles. From there it was just a matter of lining it all up. I'm actually kind of stoked about how it came out.

For now it's just hanging on the head tube with blue tape. I'm going to mount it with double-sided 3M outdoor tape, but I want to seal it with some kind of clear sheet first. I was thinking Crystal Clear Gorilla Tape, as I have used it on something like this before and it seemed to work well. (but I have to remember where the heck I put the roll...) Anybody have other suggestions for laminating-type film or tape?

Edit: no go on the Gorilla Tape, or at least the roll I have here. It's only an inch and a half wide, and I need something at least two inches. Still looking for suggestions. And yes, I cleaned up the measuring marks between the white and the blue.

 

[OddJob]

I like it the way it is, are you sure you need a clear tape / lamination?

Great work on the badge!

 

[Machine Age Victim]

Nice work, classy build!

 

[RustyGold]

Turned out great! For rounded corners, a bench mounted belt sander is your friend. An alternative would be a grey wheel on a bench mounted grinder/buffer.

 

[RustyGold]

So...on a lark I decided to reinforce my claim, above, while at work... running two machines...in under 15 minutes. This is proof of concept only...no templates or layout...just a quick eyeball job (I'm not a sheet metal guy).

Found a piece of stock...

Cut off a chunk...

Shaped one end on a grey wheel...the other on a belt sander...

Tah and dah ,
Jason