Hey! I posted pieces of this in the Intro section, but it's finally all put together and rideable. The basic bike was a dumpster-rescue Schwinn cruiser that had been painted primer gray. My mtn. bike buddy that found the bike threw some whitewalls and a new cruiser seat on it and gave it to me. I saw a shot of a rusted mtn. bike frame in a magazine, and decided to do the same to this. I stripped the frame to bare metal, sprayed it with salt water every day for about a month and a half, and then clear-coated the rust. The seat was replaced with a Brooks I found on ebay. All the chrome (and the white walls!) were painted with a Rustoleum Dark Bronze. The grips are bike chains that I wrapped around the handlebar and then dipped in clear Plasti-Dip; not real happy with the final on those, though. I was hoping the Plasti-Dip would dry completely clear, but it's a bit cloudy. I might end up re-doing them sometime.
I also added a few flattened bottlecaps as accents; Guinness as the headbadge, and a Fat Tire for one grip cap and Newcastle for the other.
Oh, and I borrowed Ed_Straker's_Rat's idea for the gas pipe seatpost; awesome idea, Ed: http://www.ratrodbikes.com/forum/viewto ... =25&t=9746
I should have taken some before shots, but here's what I ended up with:
Here's a closeup of the rust finish:
and a closeup of one of the grips:
I also added a few flattened bottlecaps as accents; Guinness as the headbadge, and a Fat Tire for one grip cap and Newcastle for the other.
Oh, and I borrowed Ed_Straker's_Rat's idea for the gas pipe seatpost; awesome idea, Ed: http://www.ratrodbikes.com/forum/viewto ... =25&t=9746
I should have taken some before shots, but here's what I ended up with:
![side2.jpg](https://proxy.imagearchive.com/a1d/a1d406a578c4eb7374d02ff5fb6c0876.jpg)
![side.jpg](https://proxy.imagearchive.com/f15/f15e4a246a89456987740de88d5c66e6.jpg)
Here's a closeup of the rust finish:
![closeup.jpg](https://proxy.imagearchive.com/9c1/9c11a0660e30c3082e9452fd59688e15.jpg)
and a closeup of one of the grips:
![grip.jpg](https://proxy.imagearchive.com/ba8/ba810790bf4cb3a2abb17999ec2c15cf.jpg)
![headbadge.jpg](https://proxy.imagearchive.com/17f/17fcb80ef2934711553a71ee2a6c9d2d.jpg)
![saddle.jpg](https://proxy.imagearchive.com/8cc/8cc47a7a6c3a4db08ce9bd3e307d9926.jpg)
![rear2.jpg](https://proxy.imagearchive.com/a04/a04c794f6a458067241e1ea2daef52ed.jpg)