BO15 Project 346 Good Old Days Cruiser

[Starnger]

Hello again everybody! Hope you are having a nice day full of joy
I was not planning to jump on class 2 build, and honestly i am pretty sure i won't manage to finish the bike in time. But i will at least try to make it rideable.
And here is why i have decided to do it anyway. My school moves to another city soon, from Poznan where i live to Warsaw. And the school workshop does as well. The very same workshop that i was kindly allowed to use to build my bikes. So i have to move all my materials out, and i basically have till the end of this month to finish all my bike related projects i wanted to do there. Therefore i have decided to throw together this quick build i was thinking about for a long time.
The guys from Project 346, famous for their Basman, also made a cruiser bike, not so well known outside of the Netherlands. The starting point was to make a cool oldschool looking cruiser that is more suited for taller people, like many Dutch people are. Pretty much all the cruiser available on the mass market like Electras or Nirves are quite small. So they have designed and produced a good few of those back in the days. I believe they made them from 2013 till 2016. I have owned a couple of them before and felt pretty comfortable riding them. That's how they looked like in stock:

I recently have acquired myself one of them, one of the first ones built. Frame number is C346012, so i believe it is 12'th ever built. The bike frame was repaired, welded up in few places, and not well painted over, so it started to rot. I had to fix it up anyways, so i have decided to modify it in the way it would resemble 1940's - 1950's cruiser even closer then originally. Also i have decided to move BB even more to the front, to gain even larger frame size. Here is what i am starting with:

It is going to be a quick build, as i mentioned, since i have to finish all the frame building work in three weeks. So i keep you guys updated

 

[OddJob]

Build on~!

 

[MattiThundrrr]

Hey, we're not ALL that tall!

Funny thing: the people on my dad's side are all above 1.8m. My mother's side, also Dutch, are about 1.5m. For the Americans, that's a foot difference!
I like the look of the frame, hope you can get it done before the deadline!

 

[kingfish254]

Great to see you back in the fun!!! I had never heard to those cruisers from 346. I like the early motorbike frame loop on the bottom. Great curves and flow on that frame. Are you gonna turn this into a tranny too?

 

[Starnger]

Great to see you back in the fun!!! I had never heard to those cruisers from 346. I like the early motorbike frame loop on the bottom. Great curves and flow on that frame. Are you gonna turn this into a tranny too?

Yep, that's the plan!

 

[Starnger]

Started by cleaning the weld from the BB with the lathe.

Then i've made the top bars. Used a piece of original bar and welded it to the straight piece.

Then the bottom part.

Honestly, i am a bit unhappy about the welds quality and the lower part lines. I know i can do way better then that, but the fact i am in a hurry does influence the result a lot. I think i would redo the bottom part today, planning to lift the bb and a bottom tube a bit higher, to be parallel with the top. I have experienced this in past and i know, if i am not 100% satisfied now i am not going to forgive it to myself later.

 

[Starnger]

Okay, now better
Still would need to clean the welds up a little. Usually i don't clean my welds, but this time they are a bit ugly indeed, so i have decided to try.

 

[OddJob]

NIce work on the frame mod! Looks killer!

 

[Starnger]

NIce work on the frame mod! Looks killer!

Thanks a lot! I wish to put it together on CWC parts. Since i tried original Shockmaster fork my life won't be same But it is lots of money and waiting time. So i am not sure what parts do i want to use for it yet.

 

[kingfish254]

Thanks a lot! I wish to put it together on CWC parts.

Interesting you should say that. The curves of the rear triangle remind me of the old CWC frames.

Great mods to the the frame! How wide is that rear end?

 

[Starnger]

Interesting you should say that. The curves of the rear triangle remind me of the old CWC frames.

Great mods to the the frame! How wide is that rear end?

The reason for this is that the original frame is designed by Bas Pruisscher, same guy who designed Basman. No secret CWC was a great inspiration for him, any one who have seen Basman and Roadmaster would notice how similar they are. The more i know about CWC the more i can digg design of original 346 bikes to be honest. Like the fact they use curved fender stays on Basman now clearly seems a reference to me. Before it just looked like a cool little detail, but now i see heritage
The rear triangle is about 130mm wide, it was designed wide enough to easily take 100mm rim with a tire.

 

[Starnger]

I was going to post a picture of this bike prototype, and found that Bas himself is registered here (@basman33). But unfortunately he did not visit the forum since 2013, the year we met Well, i guess he has other fun stuff to do now, wish him luck
Anyway, here is a photo of a prototype:

 

[toro1978]

It looks like it is just about to bite a chunk out of someone. Then another.
Awesome wheelset and frame, a lot of potential for sure.
Your frame turned out great too, I love it.
I had never heard of these before, as many people I only knew the Basman bike.
I'd love to get the male frame.

 

[Starnger]

It looks like it is just about to bite a chunk out of someone. Then another.
Awesome wheelset and frame, a lot of potential for sure.
Your frame turned out great too, I love it.
I had never heard of these before, as many people I only knew the Basman bike.
I'd love to get the male frame.

They pop up on Marktplaats.nl every now and then for around 250 euro, and time to time i also see them at ebay-kleinanzeigen.

 

[Starnger]

Some parts for the build have arrived. I am only going to show you one for now, i still need to take a photo of the rest.

 

[kingfish254]

I've always wanted to play around with one of those Nuvinci hubs. Nice toy.

 

[Starnger]

Threw the bike together yesterday. Got some cool parts from szathmarig at the CABE. Big pleasure to deal with this gentleman, he shows as a very responsible seller. All the stuff he sent me was in Poland in just 3 days. Bought few sets of vintage cranks, stems and a ladies Roadmaster fork from him.

The fork fitted perfectly, though i have experienced some problems with the cranks. They have finer thread on them, so none of my modern BB bearing sets worked. One came with original bearings, and they would end up on my '51 Roadmaster build. So for now i am using modern cranks on this bike.

Vintage NOS Monark chainring you have seen on my Roadmaster build now found its place here. Along with some Nexus 8 26" wheel you could have seen on my Silver Bullet Basman build.

Though it looks a little unbalanced for now, my goal is to make it ridable and check if i would like to change anything. So it is going to stay totally rat for now, until i chose all the parts and give it to the paint shop.

 

[OddJob]

That fork was a nice added touch. Bike is coming along well!

 

[Starnger]

The bike is now ride-able, i may change some little details, but this is the way i am taking it for a test-ride. The coming weekend it is going to be a big cruise in Poland, so i am going to make few hundred km on this bike, and my girlfriend on Schwinn from class one.

On the background you may see my new workshop i am slowly moving in to. As i probably told already, my school is moving out from the city, so i am arranging my new workspace now. It is quite huge, but now empty, and requiring lots of attention.

Here is a quick mock-up i made for the future color-scheme. Not sure if i manage to get it painted and assembled before build-off is finished, but that's where i am heading with it.

 

[sandman]

future color-scheme

I'm going to copy that someday .