A few years ago I bought a copy of 'The Bicycle' by Gilbert King and in it found my dream bike, an 1890's 'Zimmy' racer. I particularly love the paint scheme and the clean lines of the bike.
http://books.google.ca/books?id=DofSxFG ... t&resnum=1
About Arthur A Zimmerman: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Augustus_Zimmerman
So, without getting a mortgage to buy an original, I figured I should go about creating my own. The donor bike is a fixie I built a few years ago from an unnamed track frame I got off eBay. The frame is Reynolds 631 Chromoly steel, very stiff and light :
First, the old paint has to go, love the look of the paint coming off (mental note, pick a less windy day to do this next time, and don't wear shorts)
Next attack the frame with some sandpaper to give it some 'grit' for the paint.
Had an idea while I was sanding and spent an hour polishing part of the downtube to get it really shiny. Then I cut out a star from aluminium ducting tape and stuck it on prior to painting:
Three coats of undercoat, three coats of krylon satin black later, carefully peeled off the mask (forgot to photo it before adding gold pinstripe):
Now for the pinstriping. I can't claim to be any good at painting straight lines so I used pinstripe masking tape (http://www.finessepinstriping.com/striper_order.asp)
Next for a cool chainguard. I bought this off a guy in Belgium, plain aluminium with a St Christopher's embossed on the front. First I painted the top edge black and added gold pinstripes to match the frame and then traced the insert onto card and then cut out the design out of real oak veneer. Glued it to the chainguard with rubber cement and gave it a couple coats of clearcoat.
Finished up the gold pinstriping and gave it 4 coats of clearcoat. Next the forks. I was going to go with a chromoly fork but I like the bump-absorbing feel of carbon fiber, specially when using 120 psi tires. Stripped the clear-coat off the forks, being very careful not to go down to the fibers themselves, that would be bad. Undercoat, satin black & clearcoat.
A Century Cycles Co. headbadge from eBay. Removed the last bits of original paint and gave it a quick polish to bring out the highlites
Now to put it together. The handle bars are a set of cut-down Nitto zero-drop track bars that were wrapped with two layers of hemp twine and then shellacked to waterproof them. Wheels are Formla track flip-flop hubs on Alex rims with a 16T cog. Cranks are Truvative Elita with a 48t track ring and Crank Brothers eggbeater pedals.
(Century Cycles Co headbadge)
Hemp twine wrapped bars and leather tool bag
http://books.google.ca/books?id=DofSxFG ... t&resnum=1
About Arthur A Zimmerman: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Augustus_Zimmerman
So, without getting a mortgage to buy an original, I figured I should go about creating my own. The donor bike is a fixie I built a few years ago from an unnamed track frame I got off eBay. The frame is Reynolds 631 Chromoly steel, very stiff and light :
First, the old paint has to go, love the look of the paint coming off (mental note, pick a less windy day to do this next time, and don't wear shorts)
Next attack the frame with some sandpaper to give it some 'grit' for the paint.
Had an idea while I was sanding and spent an hour polishing part of the downtube to get it really shiny. Then I cut out a star from aluminium ducting tape and stuck it on prior to painting:
Three coats of undercoat, three coats of krylon satin black later, carefully peeled off the mask (forgot to photo it before adding gold pinstripe):
Now for the pinstriping. I can't claim to be any good at painting straight lines so I used pinstripe masking tape (http://www.finessepinstriping.com/striper_order.asp)
Next for a cool chainguard. I bought this off a guy in Belgium, plain aluminium with a St Christopher's embossed on the front. First I painted the top edge black and added gold pinstripes to match the frame and then traced the insert onto card and then cut out the design out of real oak veneer. Glued it to the chainguard with rubber cement and gave it a couple coats of clearcoat.
Finished up the gold pinstriping and gave it 4 coats of clearcoat. Next the forks. I was going to go with a chromoly fork but I like the bump-absorbing feel of carbon fiber, specially when using 120 psi tires. Stripped the clear-coat off the forks, being very careful not to go down to the fibers themselves, that would be bad. Undercoat, satin black & clearcoat.
A Century Cycles Co. headbadge from eBay. Removed the last bits of original paint and gave it a quick polish to bring out the highlites
Now to put it together. The handle bars are a set of cut-down Nitto zero-drop track bars that were wrapped with two layers of hemp twine and then shellacked to waterproof them. Wheels are Formla track flip-flop hubs on Alex rims with a 16T cog. Cranks are Truvative Elita with a 48t track ring and Crank Brothers eggbeater pedals.
(Century Cycles Co headbadge)
Hemp twine wrapped bars and leather tool bag
