# 1927 Schwinn Ladies bike



## Waterland (Oct 9, 2012)

I acquired this bike over the summer off of Craigslist and I've since been slowly breaking it down, cleaning it up and starting a semi restoration of it.  I'm trying to keep the bike as original as possible, but still presentable and hopefully eventually rideable.  When I purchased it, the bike had been entirely painted over with red brush-on paint.  The plated parts had been painted over with silver paint.  I have been slowly stripping the over-paint with acetone to reveal the original paint underneath and it's working out very well.  Most of the original paint is still present, with some paint loss on details such as darts and pinstriping.  When stripping the the after market paint, I found a very interesting color combination of maroon and green with gold pinstripes, with I think looks great.  A fair deal of the plating is still intact, and I have soaked all rusty parts in Evapo-Rust to clean them up and make them look somewhat new again.

In the process of removing the fork, I noticed there is a slight bend in the steer tube.  I have read some threads on how to fix this and it seems to be something that is a very simple fix as the bend is not too severe.  I also noticed that some of the threads appear to be damaged, I will try the suggestion I have heard from several threads on multiple forums to try thread files to clean these up and make the headset thread on properly.

I'm not sure if the the seat that was on it when I got it was original, but it was in pretty rough shape:  the stitching had come loose so the cover was separating from the pan.  I traded the seat to Cabe member Bricycle for a really nice condition ladies' Troxel long spring saddle that will go on the bike.  He also provided me with some nice ladies' ball end grips as the bike had no grips when I got it.

The wheels are original wood-clad 26" rims with some very old singletube tires on them which are hard as a rock.  The rear hub is a New Departure Model C and the front hub is a New Departure Model SM.  I would like to keep the original rims, but for riding purposed this may not be practical as I am having trouble finding tires.  NOS 26" singletubes are very expensive and I would not want to risk the chance that they may fail while I am riding.  I am trying to decide between lacing new clincher rims to the original hubs, or just buying a new wheel set for riding.

I have attached some pictures of some of the project so far and will post more as it all starts to come together.  I am really excited about this bike.  I love the looks of it and it is also the oldest bike I own.  I am really looking forward to getting it back on the road. 

Here is the bike right after I got it before anything was done to it:






The front and rear fender, front has been stripped of old paint, rear has not:





The front fender after stripping showing green stripe down the middle raised section of the fender:





The partially stripped frame showing paint details:





The stripped fork with paint details:


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## chitown (Oct 10, 2012)

Looks great with the house paint off. Sure is a dead ringer for matching the men's bike I picked up last month.

Did your cranks have a date stamp? How about a serial #. Also wondering what the distance of the badge holes.

Are you sure those are 26"??? I ask because mine were 28" metal-clads I didn't know they were making 26" metal-clad in the 20's unless it's a children's bike??? (corrections welcomed).


Keep us posted on progress.


Chris


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## rustyspoke66 (Oct 10, 2012)

I wonder if that green is the same as the lime green Schwinn used in the 30's and 40's?


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## Waterland (Oct 11, 2012)

The crank was stamped as27 and the earliest known manufacture year for the ND model C and Model SM is also 1927, so this is for sure a 1927.  The wheels are indeed 26" so i suspect this is a juvenile model.  The headbadge is the very common "electric" badge that you see in new old stock condition everywhere, so it's cool to see it actually mounted on a bike from the factory.  I will have more pictures later this week.


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## bricycle (Oct 11, 2012)

Very nice work...


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