Re: *The 76er* (the fumes are back! update: 5/12)
Days 12-14
I've been trying to get a little sleep the past few nights, I've been overdoing these late night bike fests. The last couple days I didn't really do anything with the build-off bike (since I was mad at it still for not letting go of it's paint). Then yesterday I got out the mountain bike to ride with a new friend. Covered about 10 miles on the local trail, he had borrowed a Next full suspension with a bent pedal and cruiser saddle, the ride about killed him, I let him ride my Gary Fisher for a while and started to hate the Next bike. We got back from the ride and picked up a free bike from the same guy that loaned him the crap bike. The bike he got was a Ross USA MT3600 mountain bike, full suspension. Nice bike, been sitting a long time, cranks wouldn't turn, we brought it back here and put in a new BB, new cranks, new chain, new front wheel, and greased it up and he rode it home. I like having parts.
Anyway, back to the build off.
So I decided to quit with all the chemicals and remove the paint manually... ugh.
The twisted wire brush on the angle grinder really puts out some vibes, gets painful and numbing after a while, but it does this:
For all of you that have to fake or accelorate the rust patina, feel lucky. I live in the humid (look it up west coasters) southeast and I had to remove rust from the seat tube where I cut it just a few days earlier, and it's been inside, so I
must primer this tomorrow or I'll have to sand again before paint. I love the raw look, but it's not for me on this build.
I cut the long fork legs off earlier, so once the paint was gone I had to put the front end on again just to see how it would look.
Oops, I made a mistake. I was going to put a bracket on the steer tube under the bottom retainer to hold my light, but I already cut the fork legs, if I added a bracket the top triple tree clamp would go up and the fork legs wouldn't be flush with the top anymore... I gotta find another way to mount that headlight.
I got it.
I had 1 more triple tree clamp off a crappy suspension fork (Next bike). I didn't like the chrome, but it goes well with the stainless steel light.
Plus, now I can move the light up and down all I want to get it just right without having to bend/modify a bracket.
What can I do with these? :?:
Finally, after wrestling with the thick thick thick brass last time, I thought I could easily hammer it down thin to make a headbadge... HA! I found my thinner brass. Ever seen one of these?
I bet a lot of money has been passed in that plate. Solid brass and thicker than the newer bright ones, so I chopped it up:
I might have to get one usher to sit down tomorrow in church.
My tin snips will easily cut the flat bottom, so I brought in the brass circle until I can get some inspiration and draw something on it to cut out and etch.
That's it for tonight, have homecoming at church toworrow and no evening services, so I hope to get some real work done tomorrow, maybe some paint.
Friday the 22nd of October, just 5 days before I was born, red dye #4 is banned by the US Food and Drug Administration after it is discovered that it causes tumors in the bladders of dogs. The dye is still used in Canada, poor Canadians. I really dodged that bullet, however, Murray kept using super strong chemical paint stripper proof red paint to paint their 1976 Skybolts, which then almost 35 years later I would use cancer causing chemicals to try and remove just to make up for lost time from that old red dye #4.
