Skip Tooth Sprocket

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ACD

ACD

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Will a skip tooth rear sprocket fit on a newer hub like say a Wally World donor bike? I have a skip tooth front sprocket and chain but no rear sprocket or wheel for that matter on my ladies Hawthorne that I will be making into a Xena Warrior Princess Bike. The Escaped Convict keeps bugging me for a girlfriend.

Aaron
 
ive never had one but i dont think so (or else this sight would see more of them), there sposed to be a 1" pitch (from tooth to tooth), i dunno what a standard chain pitch is tho :oops:
 
As far as I know, none of the old skiptooth rear sprockets will fit a modern imported hub....

BUT.... a skiptooth front sprocket will work just fine with a modern chain. The pitch of a new chain is 1/2" and a skiptooth is 1"... so they mesh right up. (Oddly, the converse is not true. You can't use a true skiptooth CHAIN on a new sprocket, since every other link is solid. )
 
So I can use the skip tooth front sprocket with modern chain and modern rear hub/sprocket... good enough for me... Thanks!!

Aaron
 
How about grinding every other tooth off a 1/2" pitch newer rear sprocket.

I never tried it,but I DO know you would need an 'even number' of teeth on it.
 
well in theory could could use a skip sprocket with a new chain. trouble is skip sprockets tend to be very wide and i have not yet found one that will fit. however YES you can grind every other tooth off the rear (make sure it is even number before grinding) and it will work fine on a skip chain. this is what i did for the setup on the lucky 7 schwinn boardtracker. it has a 1940's schwinn clover skip sprocket, NOS skip chain and the custom rear sprocket on a nexus 7 hub. it has never fallen off poped or done anything weird and i have put about 150 miles on it with the new setup.
 
Karfer, you are partly right in that a chain made for a derailleur bike will not work with many older skiptooths. The chains are a bit too thin (3/32") to fit right. However, a "Standard" chain (1/8" wide) from a cruiser will fit most skiptooths. 1/8" chains are common at bike shops..... or on old cruisers.

Just to be sure, I checked several skiptooths with a 1/8 and 3/32 chain over the week-end. My wife has a collection of sprockets, so I had a lot to work with. Anyway.... the Schwinn, Columbia, and generic American made skiptooths all work fine with a 1/8" chain. Only the Generic sprocket will fit the 3/32 chain well. A Raliegh skiptooth fit both chains. ONE sprocket does not work at all though: a Meade. It is wrong in both pitch and width. BUT you are not likely to use a Meade sprocket since they are rather obscure.

So... if you want to use a skiptooth front with a standard rear, you should not have any problems as long as you use the right chain. IF you use a 1/8" width you will be fine. If you use a 3/32" width, it might not work.
 
wow weird i have tried to use a standard chain in the past on a skip sprocket more than once and it would not fit. it would not index all the way down onto the teeth of the sprocket properly because of how wide the gear is. i know a 1/8th is thicker but on the ones i tried it just was not right. maybe the ones you have are thinner iduno maybe i had too many beers when i was trying to make it work. but personally i would find a skip chain too because they have a totally different look than a standard chain.
 
Karf....

I'd guess that there was a lot of variation back then. Standardization was just coming into vogue, and each manufacturer had his own ideas about how the various parts should fit together.... so it doesn't surpise me that you had a different result than I did.

So that leads to the following advice to others about the skip-tooth / regular chain combo: Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. You'd be wise to check the fit first.

Now... was there a mention of BEER? :D
 
yea i agree i run into that problem with old bikes where standards were just not all the way across the board yet. i was thinking more about this and i know that some of the heavy duity bmx chains are really wide spaced even though they say they are 1/8 they are thicker than that and would probably work fine on any skip sprocket. just to let you know there is one supplyer that i know of that does sell NOS skip chains but they cost 100 bucks. in my opinion though if you are really going to ride the thing it is worth it old rusty skip chains are notorious for snapping especially if you are like me and love to put the "hammer" down a lot. oh yes drinking beer helps too and if nothing else works get a bigger hammer!
 
The old skip chains were 1"X3/16", the real heavy duty bmx chains(e.g. KMC 415H) are 1/2"X3/16"(although I have seen 1/2"X1/8" bmx chains advertised as HD), should work with the old gear, sometimes the front to back skip-tooth profile can be chunky even for those HD bmx chains. The 1/2"X1/8" would likely be excessively tight on skip tooth stuff unless everything was excessively worn, both chain and sprockets.
 
If I remember right, the rear skip tooth sproket has the worm gear built on to them (machined)--it's not just a sproket. and will not work on any late model set-up. They were usually a new departure hub combo. I understand the infatuation with the "skip chain" --they are pretty cool--have had several full sized bikes (pre war) in the past with skip tooth. As far as "cobbling" things together--forget it--you need to use the correct chain--a good used one or a reproduction ( I was told they exist but are expecive) And a piece of advice, wene contemplating such things as will this work or will that work, if you have the parts in front of you ---sit down and figure it out -it's not really rocket sience after all.....
 

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