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Schwinn Lightweight Meets Balloon Tire Kustom
- Thread starter momo608
- Start date
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Schwinn499
I live for the CABE
Andrew Gorman
Cruisin' on my Bluebird
How are you bending the frame tubes? With a pipe hickey? Just curious.
The smaller size tubing is standard 3/8" new tubing bent around a large metal fan base I use in my shop. The larger tubing is cut and splice Schwinn tubing from a junk stingray and varsity. most of it is from the original jaguar frame I started with.
It will be a ten speed with drop bars and 27" rims.
Metacortex
Wore out three sets of tires already!
Please post more details on the construction if you can, I'd love to see pics of how it got to this point if you have them. What are the head and seat tube angles?
I did not take many pictures because I wasn't sure where this was headed. At one point I was thinking the trash. I made a fiberglass tank for it that completely enclosed a straight top tube. There was not enough curve in the tank and it ended up looking completely out of place with the rest of the bike. So I pulled it and started using a regular diamond frame so I could use the tank I made. That project is still waiting for some new ideas to come in. So I was looking at this and thought I'll just put the curved top tube back in, had to add about 4" to it, and call it done to save the project. Mocking the bike up I discovered that the angle of the top tube looked bad with the longer seat tube so I added a couple inches to the head tube which also allowed me to use the 24" varsity fork. Also had to re-curve the fork to have even tire clearance around the down tube. One thing always leads to another and another, so you can see why taking lots of pictures of failures and dead ends would just add to the frustration. I let the project sit in my shop for a few months while I did other projects hoping new ideas would occur. What I was seeing was not that satisfying. I got the idea to put the phantom tank on and mold it in like you see, it's part of the frame now, which led to the curved tubes below it. I can't remember exactly when the rack was put on the project but it was after I put the curved top tube back in. I like what I'm seeing so far and nothing looks out of place at least to my eye. The goal of the project is to make a full size mens road bike that looks like a balloon bike and rides well. Personally I don't see the point of custom bikes that are obviously uncomfortable to ride or ridiculous performers out on the streets.
The frame geometry is basically the jaguar geometry with the exception of the seat tube angle which puts the seat a few inches further behind the pedal crank. The distance from the head to the seat tube is the same as a 26" frame Varsity which I find comfortable. In the picture below, visualize everything above the bottom of the frame being altered. Nothing has been changed from the rear drop outs through the bottom bracket up to the head tube. Although I did spread the rear stays to get the five speed freewheel in there. The red lines mark the cuts, the squiggly lines mark where tubing has been eliminated or replaced. I'm not a design engineer but I haven't strayed too far away from original angles so I'm thinking I should be OK once this thing hits the streets. I use the 24" Varsity frame you see in the pics as a guide for overall comparison and guide for what works. There's always the trash option.
BTW, it will have internal frame cable routing for obvious reasons. Look closely and you can see some enter and exit ports in the above pics.
The frame geometry is basically the jaguar geometry with the exception of the seat tube angle which puts the seat a few inches further behind the pedal crank. The distance from the head to the seat tube is the same as a 26" frame Varsity which I find comfortable. In the picture below, visualize everything above the bottom of the frame being altered. Nothing has been changed from the rear drop outs through the bottom bracket up to the head tube. Although I did spread the rear stays to get the five speed freewheel in there. The red lines mark the cuts, the squiggly lines mark where tubing has been eliminated or replaced. I'm not a design engineer but I haven't strayed too far away from original angles so I'm thinking I should be OK once this thing hits the streets. I use the 24" Varsity frame you see in the pics as a guide for overall comparison and guide for what works. There's always the trash option.
BTW, it will have internal frame cable routing for obvious reasons. Look closely and you can see some enter and exit ports in the above pics.
Metacortex
Wore out three sets of tires already!
Very cool. Interesting that you cut and extended the headtube. Did you pick a specific length to match a fork you had? I'm guessing you'll need to have it faced to insure parallel ends for the headset. What type of welding? Thanks for posting the details.
Yes, I matched the headtube length on the 24" frame Varsity so the fork fits perfectly. I spliced in another headtube section from a scrap frame to get the length I needed using a wood dowel as a jig hammered in the headtube to align the pieces and then tack mig welded them together. Hammered it out and finished welding. Everything lined up fine, no binding in the fork at all with all bearings and cups in place. The irregularities on the outside of the headtube surfaces would have definitely caused problems if I went off of that. All welding is done with a mig welder on this project.
added the final rear derailleur cable stop today and redid the rear brake caliper bridge tube. Modifying the fork the way I did required the use of very short reach calipers so I changed the rear so I could use matching calipers. I stripped the rest of the paint and primed it but the stop and bridge tube came after. The goal is to get it close to ready for paint this year so next spring I can paint it in my unheated poll building.
Better look of what it actually looks like all in one color. Lots of filling and hand sanding to come. I'll try to do a mockup soon but I don't have the right rims built up yet for the calipers I'm using. I don't like taking parts off finished bikes, might scratch it. Thanks for your interest.!
added the final rear derailleur cable stop today and redid the rear brake caliper bridge tube. Modifying the fork the way I did required the use of very short reach calipers so I changed the rear so I could use matching calipers. I stripped the rest of the paint and primed it but the stop and bridge tube came after. The goal is to get it close to ready for paint this year so next spring I can paint it in my unheated poll building.
Better look of what it actually looks like all in one color. Lots of filling and hand sanding to come. I'll try to do a mockup soon but I don't have the right rims built up yet for the calipers I'm using. I don't like taking parts off finished bikes, might scratch it. Thanks for your interest.!
Well I thought I better do a final mockup no matter what, good thing I saved these rat rims in my loft. Once the paints on, small problems are major problems.
This is a 23" Continental for comparison, the standover on the custom is 1 1/4" higher than the Conti which makes it pretty much as intended, a 24" bike.
Center to center axles measure 42 3/4" on the Conti, 43 3/8 on the custom and for reference 70's 26" varsity's and conti's measure in at 43 1/4"
Not that anyone cares but this represents a ton of work
This is a 23" Continental for comparison, the standover on the custom is 1 1/4" higher than the Conti which makes it pretty much as intended, a 24" bike.
Center to center axles measure 42 3/4" on the Conti, 43 3/8 on the custom and for reference 70's 26" varsity's and conti's measure in at 43 1/4"
Not that anyone cares but this represents a ton of work
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