(ORBO) Rock Soup...

[chattymatty]

A little of this, a little of that goes int the pot, and what comes out the other end you hope is tasty. The inputs-

'39 Schwinn to donate it's rear triangle, a bunch of 4130 tubing, a Mosso alloy 29er fork, a bunch of bits and bops from Nova Cycles to complete the frame, a '96 Homegrown to supply it's geometry. Mix over medium heat FIRE FIRE FIRE! with lots of hand-braised goodness and somewhere over the rainbow we might be looking at a retro klunker that actually looks retro, with modern geo and that doesn't weigh 40 pounds.

But like Jeery Reed said, "We've got a long way to go and a short time to get there..."

 

[LukeTheJoker]

Oh yeah! I was hoping we would see something like this!


Luke.

 

[chattymatty]

Little Miss Sunshine, meet Mr. Tiger Saw.

Eat you heart out Kim Lardassian, instant 5 pound weight savings.

And into the electrolytic rust bath s/he goes. If you've never played with one of these, it's real live magic that would make your HS Chemistry teacher proud of you. Short version- take one old school battery charger (no electronics allowed), some sort of alkali enhancer (old fashioned 20 Mule Team Boraxo laundry enhancer is popular with the "I don't want my kids playing with dangerous chemicals" set, or since I don't have to worry about that I buy "Ph-Up" from the pool supplies aisle at Home Despot). Here's some before pics, which will be important later:

The trick is, you need some sort of 'donor metal' with is iron or steel (something galvanized is best) and hook the positive lead to the donor, the negative to the piece you want to de-rust, and just make sure they don't touch. Two safety warnings- this process releases hydrogen gas, so don't do it in a balloon while smoking, and DO NOT introduce any chrome plated parts into the mix (this will create hexavalent chromium in the bath, which will give you Love Canal flashbacks).

I use galvanised stucco mesh because it's cheap, has a ton of surface area, is cheap, is easy to shape, is economical, is readily available, and did I mention it's very reasonably priced?

and here it is cooking, terrible pic for capturing the little bubbles which rise from the part, but you can see how quickly the water has started to become stained with rust (this has been cooking MAYBE three minutes).

The beauty of this process is A: it removes the rust, B: it removes the paint, C: it frees up any rusted nuts and screws as the electrolytic process gets in all the nooks and crannies, but more importantly D: IT DOES NOT REMOVE ANY METAL like acid dips. On the molecular level, strictly speaking what you are doing is converting the oxidized FE ions back to their non-oxidized state using the carbon atoms supplied by the carbonate based substrate and electricity. Essentially it's fire, in reverse. this will cook for a day or three, them I'll wash it off with some SS wool kitchen pan scrubber to show you just how easy this is.

 

[LukeTheJoker]

Very cool! looking forward to seeing the result!

Luke.

 

[Robertk]

Gonna be cool!

 

[Fv2]

Little Miss Sunshine, meet Mr. Tiger Saw.

Eat you heart out Kim Lardassian, instant 5 pound weight savings.

And into the electrolytic rust bath s/he goes. If you've never played with one of these, it's real live magic that would make your HS Chemistry teacher proud of you. Short version- take one old school battery charger (no electronics allowed), some sort of alkali enhancer (old fashioned 20 Mule Team Boraxo laundry enhancer is popular with the "I don't want my kids playing with dangerous chemicals" set, or since I don't have to worry about that I buy "Ph-Up" from the pool supplies aisle at Home Despot). Here's some before pics, which will be important later:

The trick is, you need some sort of 'donor metal' with is iron or steel (something galvanized is best) and hook the positive lead to the donor, the negative to the piece you want to de-rust, and just make sure they don't touch. Two safety warnings- this process releases hydrogen gas, so don't do it in a balloon while smoking, and DO NOT introduce any chrome plated parts into the mix (this will create hexavalent chromium in the bath, which will give you Love Canal flashbacks).

I use galvanised stucco mesh because it's cheap, has a ton of surface area, is cheap, is easy to shape, is economical, is readily available, and did I mention it's very reasonably priced?

and here it is cooking, terrible pic for capturing the little bubbles which rise from the part, but you can see how quickly the water has started to become stained with rust (this has been cooking MAYBE three minutes).

The beauty of this process is A: it removes the rust, B: it removes the paint, C: it frees up any rusted nuts and screws as the electrolytic process gets in all the nooks and crannies, but more importantly D: IT DOES NOT REMOVE ANY METAL like acid dips. On the molecular level, strictly speaking what you are doing is converting the oxidized FE ions back to their non-oxidized state using the carbon atoms supplied by the carbonate based substrate and electricity. Essentially it's fire, in reverse. this will cook for a day or three, them I'll wash it off with some SS wool kitchen pan scrubber to show you just how easy this is.

It interesting that you say it'll remove paint, and that you use galvanized metal.

I've done this process several times(it's my go to rust removal system)
I use arm&hammer washing soda for the alkali, and rebar for the sacrificial metal. Rebar because I get it free, and was told galvanized would make toxic fumes.

I've never had paint come off though, maybe the borax is a little different than washing soda.

I still love the process tho, very Mr. Wizard.

 

[chattymatty]

Really depends on how 'stuck' the paint is. The water has to be able to get under it. And of course the closer you can get your donor metal to the piece you are cleaning the better.

Here it is after 12 hours, almost all the paint ready to fall off-

And after a very light pass with a brass brush and a blast with the hose.

Not much rust breakdown yet, but you can see it turning black, that's the process.

 

[metalchewy]

Looks like its working its way up from the tips. Cool process you are sharing here [emoji106]

Building... riding...

 

[chattymatty]

Really dos depend on the item. For example the paint on these forks was really stuck- no nooks and crannies for the process to work in, getting to this point took about a week- old fashioned paint remover would have been a better choice in this case:

but it's awesome for chains- just set it and for get it.

Before- regular old crunchy skiptooth lawn art:

and after- pure goodness with minimal effort.

 

[OddJob]

A little of this, a little of that goes int the pot, and what comes out the other end you hope is tasty. The inputs-

sa

'39 Schwinn to donate it's rear triangle, a bunch of 4130 tubing, a Mosso alloy 29er fork, a bunch of bits and bops from Nova Cycles to complete the frame, a '96 Homegrown to supply it's geometry. Mix over medium heat FIRE FIRE FIRE! with lots of hand-braised goodness and somewhere over the rainbow we might be looking at a retro klunker that actually looks retro, with modern geo and that doesn't weigh 40 pounds.

But like Jeery Reed said, "We've got a long way to go and a short time to get there..."

"We're gonna do what they say can't be done"

 

[chattymatty]

Nice that someone got the reference

 

[Chad T]

"They're thirsty in Atlanta and there's beer in Texarcana."

Subscribed. This looks like a cool thread..

 

[KJV]

Are we raly doing 110? (Ftog)

 

[Fv2]

Ok, so this all got me wanting to watch Smokey and the Bandit for the umpteenth time.
Also got the story of the two times my dad met Jerry Reed in my head.

East bound and down,loaded up and truckin'
Ok enough of that.

 

[Funkme]

Pot lucks lovem.Now I have learn't something new.
Great work so far.

 

[chattymatty]

Okey dokey, pretty much done with the rear triangle for now, going to be held up for a bit till I get the fixture built. but here we are.

Boil boil, no toil no trouble. Yes, that's a big sheet of paint floating there. It'll do that

These two are straight out of the soup, sprayed with the hose, maybe three minutes giving them a pass with the SS scrunchy and a little wire brushing in the flats and crannies.

For the most part I only let it 'cook' overnight, taking it out when I wasn't home, with a 24 our run this weekend, so figure maybe 48-60 total hours on this one, but prolly could have gone a little less. I ran it at 12v, just look at how many amps you're pulling. If you're maxing out your charger, as you might at first, drop it down to 6v so it doesn't overheat and shut down on you. Once the major stuff is blasted off the resistance drops and you can pump it back up to 12v. MAYBE 5 minutes total time scrubbing/scraping paint or rust, if that.

Anyway, I cleaned up the stays, cutout the unnecessary bits of seat mast, leftover BB and craptastic sheet metal fender mounts as I needed to spread the drops to 135mm and will be replacing the cross pieces with actual tubing anyway later for prettiness sake. Tubes are still nice and long- The original chainstay length of about 18" will be reduced to +/- 16.5".

And this is the money shot. The whole reason to go this route is the sexy sinuous curve of those football shaped stays, which curve in three planes. When Cook and Laguna and everyone one else copied these frames in the late 70's they went with the far easier to manufacture (and lighter) looptails, which while all the rage back then, just don't a Klunker make. Lot's of modern 'Retro' marques have slapped the Klunker name on their bikes and maybe added a second top tube or curved downtube, or even Dali-esque cantilever designs, but in my humble estimation, without these stays, with out that subtle little piece of Fibonacci goodness bringing up the rear, may as well slap some tape stripes on a Pinto and call your Mustang II a Cobra.


Cleaned up the drops just in case I don't end up replacing them, as at the moment I'm leaning towards just adding a sliding disk mount inside the triangle instead of the adjustable drops outside.

The nice plus about starting with a '39 frame (and certain other 40-41's like Spitfires sold to mom and pops) is the kickstand tabs make for handy derailleur hangers, like this one on the DX in my sig-

 

[LukeTheJoker]

Looking good! Cool process!

Luke.

 

[metalchewy]

Quite the transformation.

Building... riding...

 

[Mikeyfive]

Wow, v technical

 

[chattymatty]

Baby steps. Visited the 80/20 dealer in town to get my jig tossed into AutoCAD (been meaning to learn, but you know how that goes, never got around to it) and while I as there at least picked up what will form the basic chassis of the structure, and some aluminum plate to atget a rough draft started. Pulled an old middleweight frame out of the rafters I started hacking on a year or two ago then shifted projects, as I figured that would as good a bike as any to practice up my brazing skills on some nice think tubes before I hit the thin walled stuff.

This 1.5"x4.5" chunk is $1.50 an inch, so yeah, slow going on the purchasing the rest of it till I sell some bits (hats and T-shirts getting designed next week... going old school kickstarter hawking crap to friends and family).

eventually this will have a full 'cage' and a back piece behind it to mount tubing like a traditional jig, but but have enough structure that if i ever decide to some aluminum frames I can cut up the tubing myself, mount the geo, and then take it to someone to get tig'd up.