Bike Project: zzzzzzzzzz

Not much action going on here in bike-building land. The frame is primed, and has been primed for nearly 2 weeks. I’m waiting on the new head-tube badge before I proceed with the paint work. But the first one got lost in the mail. So now I’m waiting for the replacement.

Of course a painted frame won’t do much without wheels, pedals, etc. I have managed to get a few parts, mostly via eBay. I have a crankset and chainring. A rear hub should be arriving soon, along with a new bottom bracket.

Those parts should allow me to get the drive-train working. Then it’s time to get wheels. I’m probably getting a front wheel tonight, so I’ll only have to build a rear wheel. I doubt that I’ll build the wheel myself. This seems like a good project for a professional.

With the drive-train and wheels in place, I can worry about the steering and seating arrangements. But that’s so far in the future as to be mythical. So let’s not worry about that.

What stymied me most over the past couple weeks was how to put lettering on the bike frame. I have specific text that I want on the top and bottom bars. Using vinyl lettering to create a stencil seemed like the best option. But vinyl letters only come in terrible, terrible fonts. Who knew? Traditional stencils have the same problem. Hand painting the letters is not an option because I can’t draw a straight line.

I ended up finding what I needed at a scrapbooking store (where I was the only male shopper). Part of the text will be done with stickers. The other part of the text will be done with dry-transfer lettering. Assuming that I don’t fuck it up, the effect should be awesome.

The downside of the dry-transfer lettering is that the letters are black. And I had planned on painting the bike black. Black letters + black background = bad Metallica album. So that won’t fly at all. Time to pick a new color.

And, because no decision comes without terrible after-effects, this probably means that I will have to sand and re-paint the fork I bought. It’s currently black. A black fork + a non-black bike may look dumb. If so, it’s time to break out the sander. We’ll see.

Project Summary:
Days: 22
Cost: $297

May 21st, 2008 / Trackback

Bike Project: OMG, I hate sanding

The sanding is finally done. Using the paint stripper helped, as did more by-hand sanding. Short of sandblasting, I’d never get all the paint off. So I called it ‘good enough’ and painted the bike with 3 coats of primer.

If I ever have to sand a bike again, I would seriously consider paying someone to sandblast the damn thing.

But before the priming, I filled the two rivet holes on the head tube and sanded them smooth. The holes were left from the old Schwinn badge, which I removed a few days ago. Hopefully my new badge arrives soon! I need it before I can finish the paint job.

Project totals:
Days: 10
Cost: 195

May 9th, 2008 / Trackback

Bike Project: Wheel, bracket cup and yet another way to sand

More frame sanding, this time using the Dremel to get at places the palm sander couldn’t reach. This worked great, although there are places on the frame that even the Dremel can’t reach. Leading me to paint-removal method four: paint stripper.

I bought the least-poisonous looking paint stripper and used it to coat the few remaining parts of the frame that are still painted. It’ll soak in overnight and I’ll try scraping the paint off tomorrow. We’ll see how that goes.

Through Minneapolis Bike Love I have secured myself a front wheel. Now I just need to work on getting a real wheel and hub. No rush.

And after several days of fruitless effort, I removed the last bottom bracket cup. It required a vise, a lot of WD-40 and a giant wrench. Now all the old parts are off the frame. Hooray.

Project Totals:
Days: 8
Cost: 181

May 7th, 2008 / Tags: bike / Trackback

Bike Project: In which I recant my luddite ways

Yesterday I managed to sand about 1/3rd of the frame in 90 minutes. Today I sanded the other 2/3rds in about 30 minutes. All thanks to technology!

I bought a palm sander last year when we bought our house. But, for reasons I can’t remember, I decided that I wasn’t going to use it for sanding the bike. Terrible idea. I put it to work today and it’s a total life saver.

Tomorrow I’ll use a Dremel, which I also bought last year, to sand all the fiddly bits on the frame. Then I should be ready to start painting the bike on Thursday.

Buying power tools just for the bike project certainly would violate the Good + Cheap approach that I mentioned in my previous post. But since I already had the tools, I should put them to work.

Project totals:
Days: 7
Cost: 165

May 6th, 2008 / Tags: bike / Trackback

Bike Project: The battle of good/fast/cheap

(I’m going to stop numbering these. I know what order I wrote them in.)

If you ever work around any type of construction you’ll hear the phrase, “Fast, Good or Cheap. Pick two.” My tendency has always been Good + Fast. The result is that I get expensive results quickly. Getting fast results can be good, but sometimes I pay too much. Or my desire for speed prevents me from doing all the necessary research.

With this bike I’m trying to pick Good + Cheap. I don’t need the bike right away, and I don’t have a ton of money. Good + Cheap is the way to go. But my brain is trying its hardest to push me back to my Good + Fast tendencies.

The first fork I got was cheap, true. But I picked it up too quickly, before doing the research. So that was $10 wasted. In response, I went out and got a new fork. It’s nice, but way more money than I wanted to spend. It may end up being the most expensive part on the bike.

So, a couple of dumb moves on my part. But at least the fork is sorted.

I pulled the cranks, chain ring and bottom bracket off the frame. Well, mostly. There’s still one cup that held the bottom bracket in place. It’s quite stuck and I need to borrow a bigger wrench to remove it. Still, it was time to start sanding.

Sanding definitely qualifies as Cheap, and it’s certainly not Fast, so it must be Good, right? After about 90 minutes of sanding, I have maybe 1/3rd of the paint off. It’ll get trickier as I have to start working in the nooks & crannies. I do have an electric palm sander that I’ll put to use once I get some paper for it.

Project Totals:
Days: 6
Total: $145 (yikes!)

May 5th, 2008 / Tags: bike / Trackback