# 40-41 Westfield Elgin Model?



## rustndust (Feb 19, 2022)

While I didn't plan on adding another project to the list, I got this off the local scrap guy the other day.It was sort of a trade for a bucket of empty beer cans. 
Some searching online and I've figured out its likely a 1940-41 Elgin or Westfield. 
The forks are bent, which won't be a big deal to fix. The cranks appear to have been painted not chrome, when I pulled the cranks out, their black through and through. The sprocket was also painted black under the right side bearing cone as well. Either someone took this apart a long time ago and stripped off the chrome and painted it black or it left the factory that way.

The bike has been painted several times, the black paint on top is thick and likely brushed on.
There's some bright metallic red showing here and there where the black is chipped off but I don't think that's original either. The base paint appears to be a red primer, then white. Its got five or six coats of paint on it. My guess is that this bike has had many lives over the years. The black paint on it now looks pretty old.

I cleaned off the head tube and that part appears to be burgundy over white. 
There's a truss bracket atop the headset so it had fork trusses. 
The chain ring appears to be what an Elgin would have had.

I dug through a box of old Elgin head badges and looked all over online and couldn't find an Elgin badge that matches the outline of the old badge. All of the old Elgin badges I've got are large rectangular badges or V shaped badges. None have the right screw pattern. All of the Elgin badges I have, (11 of them), measure 2 1/8, 2 5/8, 2 3/4", and 3 1/8" screw spacing. 
The screws that were saved with each of them are larger than the holes in this frame. 
The screw holes on this frame are 2 7/8" apart, and the outline in the paint is oval and wraps partly around the sides of the tube. The badge outline is similar to an early Columbia badge but with top/bottom holes. The hole pattern is centered top to bottom on the tube. The screw holes are small, similar to what is found on a Scwhinn. (I have two 

Was this frame used on any other bikes besides Elgin?

The one downside to this frame is that I have no other parts for it, so it may end up as trade bait for something else I can use, but I'm curious as to what it might looked like back when it was new.


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## rustndust (Feb 19, 2022)

I just pulled the sprocket out the ultrasound cleaner, there is no sign of any plating, it was just peeling black paint and surface rust.
The cranks are in the tank now, it also looks like bare steel.
I have the forks in a paint stripper tank. The cleaner sort of removes the paint one layer at a time. 
They went into the tank black, after a 20 minute soak, they came out blue with white darts on each side, round two they came out red with feather like graphics on each side, round three they're showing white with black pinstriped darts. Under the white looks like red primer which is putting up more of a fight. 
I washed out the BB area, I see white paint and some red primer, after soaking the white and primer washed off revealing a metallic copper color which was immune to the solvent. I did the same to the headset, the base color on the head tube is white with red primer then blue over top the red primer. The dropouts were bright red under the black paint. It  looks like the bike has had at least three proper repaints in the past, before the black slobber job that's on it now. 
The BB and HS are both in good shape,


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## Archie Sturmer (Feb 19, 2022)

Looks like a Westfield built bicycle, serial number stamping should follow Westfield pattern, with an alphabet letter indicating the year.


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## mrg (Feb 19, 2022)

Westfield built but think seems like curved seat mast style only used on Sears Elgin models.


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## rustndust (Feb 20, 2022)

Took the cranks out of the ultrasonic washer and they too appear unplated. 
If they were plated at one time, there's nothing at all left now. Surprisingly there's no rust pitting. 





The BB cups are heavily plated. and still look like new.



The headset is in really good shape, the cups are nickle plated, the truss bracket is painted silver. 
The bearings are stamped "Torrington".



The forks straightened out great, the blades went back with little effort. 
I'm not sure the forks were born with this bike or not. 
The base layer of paint on the forks was dark red. The base color I'm seeing on the frame is 
sort of a copper red metallic. with a white outlined pattern on the head tube.






There looks to be a number buried in the paint under the bottom bracket, 
I'll have to soak off some more paint to read it. It looks like it starts with either an E or F, and I see a raised '3' all by itself right on the edge.

I normally would never strip a bike down to bare metal but this thing has so many layers of bad paint and the original paint appears to have been mostly sanded off long ago. I figure that anything I do to it at this point is an improvement. 

I'm still not sure what the plan is for this is though, my parts stash for balloon tire bikes is a bit newer and I've got none of the original parts for this. 
The frame is super heavy, far heavier than the CWC twin bar frame I've got. The head tube is super thick walled, the area where the headset cups sit is machined out to fit the cups. There's no way to tap them out from the inside like on most bikes.


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## Mercian (Feb 20, 2022)

Hi @rustndust 

If it is a Westfield produced frame, the E or F would certainly be 1940 (E) or 1941 (F). Be careful, an E stamped on the curved BB can sometimes have a faint, or non existant bottom horizontal line making it look like an F.

To help differentiate, there is a second code stamped above the first, this indicates the actual month and year of the frame manufacture.

Below is one of mine as an example, Above the main serial number you can just see a widly stamped K8. indicating August 1943. They are not all as spaced out as that.





I hope this helps. 

Best Regards,

Adrian


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## rustndust (Feb 20, 2022)

The frame is still in the tank soaking, I scraped off three layers of paint so far. 
The numbers on mine are all over the place, as if the guy manning the hammer and punch was drunk or blind. 
The first digit is definitely an E, if not they punched an F upside down.
The next digit is unreadable so far, the next is either a 2 or 7. Then there's two 1's. There what looks like may be a random G all the way up near the down tube intersection, and another punched number about an 1 1/4" to the right of it that's still filled with paint.
The stamped area is hit hard, enough to deform the bottom of the BB shell. 

The layers of paint on this are beyond anything I've seen before, I've pulled the frame twice so far and scraped off paint, so far I've got half of a large coffee can full of paint scrapings. There's more paint than frame here. 
From what I'm seeing so far, these weren't very well finished metal wise. The chainstay joints, fork blade brazing, and general fit and finish is a bit rough. I found a bit of the same thing on the 36 CWC WF I picked up a few weeks ago. 

In the few places I've been able to get down to metal on the frame, I'm not finding the copper color that's inside the BB and headset tubes. Either the copper was sprayed in there at some point, or the frame was completely stripped once before. 
The paint I'm finding closest to the metal on the frame is a medium solid red color. 
Starting with the black paint, I see black, red primer, med. blue, dark blue metallic, white, red metallic, red primer, and medium solid red. The base red I'm finding it thick and hard to remove. Its the most resistant to the paint stripper. 
The only color though under where the BB cups were seated is the copper color. All the other colors were painted over the BB cups. That tells me none of those paint jobs were original. The shear thickness of the paint layers says they were most likely brushed on. 

The big choice will be what color it will become. I've not found enough pics of these to see what the factory choices were. 
I highly doubt any of the colors I'm removing were factory, they're likely hardware store paint choices from back in the day.


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## Mercian (Feb 20, 2022)

Hi @rustndust 

You're on the right track there then with the numbers.

E is a 1940 serial number. G is a 1940 frame construction number. 

The random stamping is also a feature of some Westfield bikes. Here's a 1943 from Westfield, (@HARPO ), and there are even more random examples out there.





As to what it might have looked like, going on the frame, date and eight slotted disk chainwheel here are some possibilities:

E57587 / G3 belonging to @Luckykat32 https://thecabe.com/forum/threads/late-30s-elgin-original-paint.23690/#post-122679





And E38357 / G4   belonging to @stingrayjoe https://thecabe.com/forum/conversations/wesfield-built-elgin.239749/#convMessage-777823




I hope this helps.

Best Regards,

Adrian


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## rustndust (Feb 21, 2022)

I pulled the tank out of the tank after the third soak, after some scrubbing with some steel wool and a bath its nearly completely bare metal.

Here's a pic of the bottom of the bottom bracket, there's a G9 up high in the pic, 
and the last digit is double stamped, not sure what that's supposed to be, and there's a random 5 stamped below it all.
I can't tell if its supposed to be E1111030, or E1111003 or if they miss-stamped the thing and did an over stamp correction?




I still have to dunk it once more to get the rear dropouts completely clean, but I have to tweak them a bit first. The thick paint will 
help keep from leaving any marks on the metal. 

I think its about four pounds lighter now with the 6 or 7 layers of thick paint gone. 
Its hard to say which layers were paint and which were primer. 
I did find a burgundy red color under the white on the head tube, which was under two coats of red, both different shades, plus the blue and black paint and both layers of primer for each. I was really expecting to find that someone had painted over rust, but the thing is rust free, all the scale and roughness in the paint was dirt. They must have painted it a few times on the beach on a windy day. 

The one thing that still don't match up with the Elgin origins is the headbadge. There was a definite oval or round shape cut into the the two lower layers of paint, and there's even a bit of an outline of the same shape still showing in the metal. 

I'm not much of an artist but this is the general shape of the outline that was dug into the paint all around the edges of what ever badge it had.
The threaded holes in the headtube are tiny, smaller than those on a Columbia or newer Elgin, maybe smaller than even a newer Schwinn badge from the 70's.



I have no idea what this shape badge could be, but all the Elgin badges I've seen have either been rectangular or V shaped. 
The outline of the badge in the paint wrapped completely around the sides of the tube. What ever was on it was a huge badge. 
There upper part may have had fancy edges, or some sort of scroll work the outline looks like a rope pattern indented into the paint. 

There's always the possibility too that none of the paint I removed was original and what ever badge it had was wrong, but so far I've not
found an Elgin badge with 2 7/8" screw hole spacing. 

The screw holes are also a tad bit off center, just a bit to the right side of the bike. 

I've got a buddy with a massive headbadge collection, he dug through all of them and couldn't come up with any that even would fit the screw pattern. 
He gave me 11 different Elgin badges, even though a few are huge in size, none match the screw holes. 

Any idea on what headbadge it could have had?

Everything points to Elgin but the headbadge hole spacing so far.


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## Mercian (Feb 21, 2022)

Hi again, @rustndust 

E111103 / G9. G9 means the frame was made September 1940, and looking at other serial numbers (allocated when the bike was completed), it was built up soon after. It's not the first wrongly stamped S/N I've seen, overstamped. Because there are no other 3's on the bb, they would have had to pick up the stamp to do this, so I'm fairly sure they stamped 0 twice by mistake, then corrected it. The 5 underneath is slightly unusual, in that I've not seen one there before, so do not know what it means.

I've noticed that this frame is actually a slightly later style than the pictures I showed above, with a curved seat tube you see in late 1940 to 1941 bikes.

@junkyard 's bike here is the same month of manufacture, same frame and chainwheel. It also had a heavy overpaint, 2 7/8" badgehole spacing, and a missing badge.

It is exactly 10000 frames after yours  E121103. https://thecabe.com/forum/threads/unknown-frame.19555/#post-99193





And here's another similar frame and chainring bike from early 1941. The badged ones I have listed are all Elgin.








						Elgin ID | Classic Balloon Tire Bicycles 1933-1965
					

Hello,  Any thoughts on the year of this Elgin? I don’t have a serial number. Not sure what is mounted on the fork. Also does it look to be original?  Any information would be appreciated! thanks




					thecabe.com
				




That's about all I can tell you.

Best Regards,

Adrian


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## rustndust (Feb 21, 2022)

(https://thecabe.com/forum/threads/late-30s-elgin-original-paint.23690/#post-122679)

This one is probably the closest to what mine here looked like, other than the curved seat tube. 
The white paint I found was done like the bike in the pic, and the red looks similar
I don't have a chainguard like that, but have something very similar in chrome from a newer bike. 
What I don't have is peaked fenders, all my fenders are round top with no duck tails.
Of course, the round fenders fit the frame well.
(The fenders from the CWC I picked up before fit this frame better than the frame they came on).
The blue paint on the forks had the darts like the blue bike above, but I found red under the blue on the forks too.

The problem with this bike is that to put it together now, I'll have to cannibalize two other projects. 

What was the purpose of the curve seat tube? Looks? or was it functional somehow?


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## rustndust (Feb 21, 2022)

Mercian said:


> Hi again, @rustndust
> 
> E111103 / G9. G9 means the frame was made September 1940, and looking at other serial numbers (allocated when the bike was completed), it was built up soon after. It's not the first wrongly stamped S/N I've seen, overstamped. Because there are no other 3's on the bb, they would have had to pick up the stamp to do this, so I'm fairly sure they stamped 0 twice by mistake, then corrected it. The 5 underneath is slightly unusual, in that I've not seen one there before, so do not know what it means.
> 
> ...



It almost looks like the same bike. That post is 11 years old, I wonder if it is the same bike and the numbers were just miss read or miss-typed then?
I can't say where this one came from other than I spotted a junk guy with it hanging on the cyclone fence cage in the back of his truck.
I got this bike, the row boat its pictured on, and a gallon paint can full of skip tooth chains from the guy in trade for a trash can full of empty beer cans and some other scrap I had out behind the garage. Sort of a my junk for his junk deal. Maybe the forks got bent by the junk guy?

I hate to think there's more than one of these out there all slobbered up with cheap paint like this thing was. 
I can honestly say I've never seen such a mess paint wise. Someone didn't know about sandpaper or paint stripper I guess. 
It did preserve it well though, but the painting over dirt and sand was  bit odd too. I suppose though it could have been a kid who did it long ago. 
If its not the same bike, I wonder how long in between time wise 1000 bikes was back then? 
What about the double stamped 3 and 0? Is it a 3 or a 0, or are they both part of the serial number?

The 2 7/8" headbadge holes still has me puzzled though, I've looked at dozens of badges, both here and online and don't see any Elgin badges that have that spacing. There's either another badge I'm not finding or another brand or model used this frame. It may well be Elgin, but maybe they had a sub model that got a different badge?


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## Mercian (Feb 21, 2022)

Hi @rustndust

I think the curved seat tube is cosmetic, a model year difference thing.

I must admit, it did occur to me it could be the same bike. I know you are in New Jersey, but there's no indication of where Junkyard was. Perhaps using the monika Junkyard, it is actually the guy you bought the bike from? Would you ever be in a position to ask him?

If the paint was that thick, and never removed, then it wouldn't be too surprising if the number was a little incorrect.

In 1940 Westfield made 163879 bikes, so roughly 3100 per week, or 450 a day. So, 10,000 in a month is certainly possible.

For the double stamped 3 and 0, I'm pretty sure it's a 0 overstamped with a 3, simply because the guy stamped a 0 as the penultimate number, and then stamped it again. Since there are no other 3's on the bb. It is more likely he was distracted with what he had in hand, and stamped a second 0 by mistake than to put the 0 down, pick up a 3, stamp it, then have to overstamp with a 0. That's not to say it couldn't have happened.

So, to my mind, it is E111103.

I'm going to leave E121103 on my listings for the moment, since I can't prove they are the same bike, and Westfield were producing 1000's of similar bikes at the time, so it's not impossible they are two different bikes.

As to the badge, maybe @catfish can suggest a match to your drawing, or knows more about Elgin badges?

Best Regards,

Adrian


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## Rivnut (Feb 21, 2022)

Here's a picture of my 39 Elgin as it was when I picked it up.  Straight seat tube vs curved is a differfence in models.  I now have a correct Elgin fork for it  to replace thkis aftermarket one.  Chainguard, truss rods, chainring, and rack are correct.  It has and SD date code stamped into it.


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## rustndust (Feb 21, 2022)

Mercian said:


> Hi @rustndust
> 
> ......................
> 
> ...




I got the bike from a scavenger/scrapper who goes around here on trash day. He's got an old dodge pickup with what looks like a dog pen welded to the top of the bed. He picks up anything metal he spots. Its not legal but a few guys get away with it. 
He often has things of interest, last fall he found a dozen heavy steel shelves that I also traded for some old cans. 
I didn't get the impression he was one for old bikes, he didn't seem to know what it was, to him it was just scrap iron. 
He did tell me he got the bike, the bucket of chain, and the boat all at the same place but he didn't say where and his English isn't that good anyway. For all I know he was dumpster diving at a bike shop.
It doesn't look like Junkyard has been on here in more than 10 years. A lot could have happened in that amount of time too.


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## Archie Sturmer (Feb 21, 2022)

Should not really compare Westfield bikes to Murray-built bikes.
But once there was a member with a 1940-E (SE) Murray-built Sears bicycle, and the stamping showed a peculiar code for Murray-built Sears bicycles, versus those that Westfield may have supplied.








						Help dating this girls Elgin  | General Discussion About Old Bicycles
					

The “SF” if that’s what it reads might be a Sears 1941-F built by Murray; the “MOD-502” code indicates Murray as the supplier for Sears.  Sears used a prefix code to identify the manufacturer as part of the model number; for examples, MOD-501 for Westfield, or MOD-503 for another (Huffman...




					thecabe.com


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## rustndust (Feb 23, 2022)

After completely stripping this thing down to bare metal, I'm seeing that the factory color was a bright fire engine red. 

I did some online digging and found a few links, and a few pics. 
This could be the badge outline, its hard to tell, but maybe someone has one to measure the screw spacing?
It does look taller than the Elgin badge. 
The sprocket though don't match. 

http://www.nostalgic.net/1938-1941-sears-collegiate-elgin
However, the frame on this bike is very different than mine where the stays meet the seat tube. 
It also has a different fork.  This model though in the catalog pages below has the same fork as mine. 

I found this online too:
(From the 1940 Sears Catalog)

Many things are different comparing mine to these pics, my forks, sprocket, cranks, and frame are different then each of these bikes.


Same sprocket, wrong cranks, wrong fork, small headbadge.









The headbadge on the Collegiate resembles the outline on my frame, but my frame, sprocket, and cranks are different. 
This is one of the model that came in red though. and the forks are the same style as mine. 
I realize its just an artists rendition in these catalog pages but it could be a clue as to what my bike was. 
Or, it was cross bred a long time ago and the nothing I have belongs together?








In the end though, all I've got for this bike is a frame and fork. I'm debating whether or not its even worth trying to put it back together. 

If I use parts on hand, it'll be a mismatched mutt at best. 

Looking closely at my frame, I saw no signs of it ever having the clamps for a tank, I would have figured that it would have left marks where the bands were, even in the original paint or maybe even the steel, but there were none. 
I lean toward it never having had a tank. There is marks in the tubing where it likely had some sort of rear rack at some point though, and there are small dents where it had a standard kickstand rather than a rear drop stand, or it had both.


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## Mercian (Feb 23, 2022)

Hi @rustndust 

The closest Elgin Collegiate I have listed is this one, a November 1939 bike belonging to @Emmet https://thecabe.com/forum/threads/need-help-with-identification-and-value.92444/#post-587284

I wouldn't get too hung up on your frame bing different to this or the catalogue. Yours is just a later style frame. They but badges on whatever was available to sell.

Best Regards,

Adrian


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## rustndust (Feb 23, 2022)

Does anyone have the screw spacing for the Collegiate badge?

I realize it really doesn't matter much at this point, and the chances of finding a badge is slim I suppose.
I could always just drill new holes and mount the Elgin badge but I'd rather not. 

The color I found under all the layers is a very bright red, brighter than any I've seen online 
The few spots where the paint was still fairly intact really brightened up as I sanded on it. It was almost florescent it was so bright. 

Three color charts I have are close, Fire Engine Red CE2029, Fiat Martian Red 161. or Jeep Firecracker Red.
Rustoleum Safety Red 3038 is also close but that stuff doesn't hold up with over time.


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## Archie Sturmer (Feb 23, 2022)

The catalogs might not match because Sears purchased bicycles from more than one manufacturer; e.g., Murray and Westfield.  There are threads about those two manufacturers of the era.  However, I always believed the same badges were used?
Not sure about the hole spacing differences, (Collegiate vs. Elgin); maybe I might find some badges and compare.  Also, not sure about desirability or perceived values of Collegiate vs. Elgin badged bikes.


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## rustndust (Feb 23, 2022)

It really doesn't matter to me which badge it is, I just like to try and put back what it's supposed to have. 

As a kid, my father had an old 'Rollfast', he told me he bought it used when he was starting high school. The Rollfast dealer he got it from was still around when I was a kid. The guy was a friend of my dad and his dad from way back.  He sold Rollfast and all sorts of used bikes. After my dad retired, he pulled the old bike out of the shed, tore it all apart and gave it a fresh rattle can paint job, carefully redoing the white graphics. He left the tires that were on it alone. I noticed that the bike had only one headbadge screw, holding on an old Rollfast headbadge tha he had polished up. I made a comment about the missing screw and he tells me the screws don't line up, only one will fit, its always been that way.  To make a long story short, with the advent of the internet in the 90's and various web forums like this, we determined it was a Columbia not a Rollfast. 

My father had always thought that the bike was 5 to 8 years old when he got it, it turned out it was likely near new. 
My dad swore by Rollfast, even bought a few others for all of us kids because his buddy sold nothing but. 
I found out later that the bike shop owner back then didn't know how to read, and likely didn't know one model from the other if it didnt come out of a box. I remember going there and asking for 26" tubes and him handing me something else nearly everytime. We all thought he was just trying to be funny, but looking back, he couldn't tell the difference. 

I finally hunted down the right badge for the Columbia, I found a same year ladies bike that donated some other parts as well. 
We also figured that the Columbia was likely a war time bike in that its got no chrome at all, the cranks are sort of just galvanized, the front and rear hubs are painted black. Even the bars and stem are raw steel and painted. 
When I was a kid, I trash picked a green Schwinn Hornet, it was rough, but fixable. I bent everything back into shape, straightened the fenders and chainguard, and gave it a fresh coat of the the original green paint. I worked on that bike for a month making it new again. Two weeks after I finished it, while I was down the short for a week, my bother helped himself to it and got it stolen at Chicken Delight. He left it on the curb, no lock, figuring no one would touch it. It was gone and never seen again. Likely tossed into one of the local lakes or something when they were done with it. 

Since that I've not really gone too overboard restoring any of my bikes, I'll clean them up, make them the best they can be without dumping a ton of money in them and I just ride them how ever they turn out. 

As to the headbadge holes, I've got 11 older, brass Elgin head badges, all are rectangular in various sizes but all are too small or too large for this bikes screw pattern. The largest Elgin badge is huge, its screw spacing is 3 1/8". All the others are 2 5/8" and 2 1/8". I could just fill in the holes and re-drill it to fit an early Elgin badge. It would certainly save me buying a badge and from what I see, the frames are likely the same. 

The more I think about this bike, the more I think I may just use what I have here, maybe find a proper style set of rims for it but that's it. Its not a primo model, and it never will be and will never be worth much because of it.  For now, I'll just bide my time and wait to see what turns up for this thing rather than going out and spending money on it. I'll finish sanding and I'll prime the frame for now and hang it up. When the weather breaks, I'll take care of the steer tube unless someone comes up with something I like better and it gets traded away. 
The way I see this bike its going to take $150 in supplies to paint it right, $80 for tires, $40-60 for a headbadge, and I'll have to buy a chainguard ($40 or so), a set of good used peaked fenders, (Probably another $100 or so), maybe a tank, and a set of wheels. ($100?).  I'll have $500 in it before I know it and it won't be completely done either. I'll likely need new spokes, bearings, etc too. If I didn't have any other bikes, I'd likely think differently but I've got 20 or so in the garage already and a few more in the basement and attic.
.


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## dirtman (Feb 26, 2022)

Mercian said:


> Hi again, @rustndust
> 
> E111103 / G9. G9 means the frame was made September 1940, and looking at other serial numbers (allocated when the bike was completed), it was built up soon after. It's not the first wrongly stamped S/N I've seen, overstamped. Because there are no other 3's on the bb, they would have had to pick up the stamp to do this, so I'm fairly sure they stamped 0 twice by mistake, then corrected it. The 5 underneath is slightly unusual, in that I've not seen one there before, so do not know what it means.
> 
> ...




I had the bike shown above, those pics were from the guy who I got it from. I got it in a clean out or sorts early last March. I didn't do anything with it but did have a rough set of wheels for it. I sold it to a guy who wanted some of the parts I accumulated for it, plus a ton of other bulky items I needed to clear out in the name of space. He took four bikes, three frames, 8 wheels, and five tubs of older parts. 
It was badly slobbered with multiple layers of paint as yours was. 
The rear dropouts were mangled pretty bad so I didn't bother with it and included it in the lot I sold. It wasn't a complete bike, I had what is pictured above, plus a used set of wheels that needed spokes and hubs, and a ton of work to fix rust pitting that someone had painted over. There was also a mid 30's Western Flyer frame and fenders that went to the same buyer. 
The black frame I had came from the NYC area, it was part of a huge lot of parts I acquired all at once. I really didn't have any history on it other than I was doing a real estate buddy a favor by cleaning out the house and garage. 

The headbadge did have 2 7/8" screw spacing. There was a deep outline of an oval badge of some sort, but I never bothered to figure out what it could have been. I only had it here for a few months before I let it go. 

When it comes to bikes in this shape I generally try to choose my battles, if all I have is the frame, and the bike is rough or nothing special, the usual coarse of action is to pass it along to someone more willing to take on a big project. 
The way I see it, yours is the same way. If you wish to make it roll again, use what you have and wait for the headbadge to turn up. 
You have nothing to lose, anything you do will no doubt be a major improvement, simply stripping off all the paint was a major step in itself. 

Here's a pic of the crank shell, it had red-blue-red-burgundy-black-red-black layers of paint, a few looked like they may have been house paint. 
The sprocket and cranks were pretty well rusted and painted over a few times. Yours look a lot cleaner, especially after stripping off all that paint.


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## Archie Sturmer (Feb 26, 2022)

rustndust said:


> I just like to put back what it's supposed to have.
> To make a long story short,
> the more I think I may just use what I have here.
> I'll have $500 in it before I know it and it won't be completely done either.
> If I didn't have any other bikes.




Might be a candidate frame set for more of a rat rod bike or amateur refurbishment, rather than a more expensive restoration.  A rat rod bike or “poor man’s restoration” might make do with rattle can paint and primer (2 primer coats!) and make do without fancy sheet metal accessories, and maybe even use modern aluminum wheels.

Good idea to get some primer on that stripped frame and fork.


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## rustndust (Feb 26, 2022)

I don't know about any aluminum wheels but I do have a few pair of 50's era balloon tire rims that are rectangular shape not drop center style that I could use if I can find cheap spokes. The local bike shop wants $90 for a set of spokes. I have a new New Departure Model D rear hub and a matching chrome front hub, and I've got a couple of finned sears hubs too. 
I have a set of rims but they came off another bike and I was planning on using them on that project. 
Does anyone make reproduction drop center rims that match these older model bikes?

I like the look of a bike with painted wheels and no chrome, and judging by the crankset here it was painted not plated. 
There's no way the chrome would have worn off the middle. 
Could it have been painted black from day one? All of the catalog pics are drawings not photos, its hard to tell what they were like when new. I had always thought that the black painted parts like this were more a wartime deal, but this predates the war by two years. Most late 30's bikes I've seen in the past had sort of a nickle chrome finish not paint. But 80 years is a long time too. A lot could have happened to this in years gone by.

Paint wise, I'll probably take the frame over to a buddies place that does metal coatings, he has a tank that can properly strip the frame inside and out, then I'll coat it with a good etching primer then decide from there. That way I know there's no rust hiding and that the base layer will be well adhered. It'll come out of the coating tank looking like it was dipped in yellow green dye. That will seal the metal from any future rust and give what ever finish I put on it a good base. 
It was originally an orange looking red, which I'm not too fond of since I have a choice. But I think I'd prefer it to at least be a possible factory color option. In other words, it needs to stay period correct if nothing else. 

Wheel type is less important because wheels can be swapped out fairly easily but I think they need to be painted to match the frame in this case. 

I do like wider tires, and many modern tires are on the narrow side compared to most original rubber. I've got a pair of early 50's Carlisle Lightning Darts on one bike and they're as big, maybe bigger around than a set of Fat Franks in 2.35".


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## rustndust (Feb 28, 2022)

I was able to get a few measurements today for the Collegiate headbadge hole spacing and they do not match my frame. 
They apparently use the same 2 5/8" screw spacing as most of the Elgin badges. 
I'm finding Elgin badges that have 2 1/8 and 2 5/8" and 3 1/8" screw spacing, non at 2 7/8" like my frame needs. 
I'm also finding that the original bikes I've looked at have steel rivets, not screws? 
My bike has tiny threaded holes, too small for the rivets used on the Elgin badges. 

Was there any other versions of this frame with maybe a different branding or headbadge? 
From what I'm seeing, the curved seat tube seems to be a Sears exclusive so far but all I have to go on is what I find online and a few bikes I've seen locally. 
Did Sears sell enough bikes for Westfield to have made them a dedicated frame?

There's two Collegiate badges on ebay right now, the seller lists them at being for "Snyder built" Sears bikes. The one states its got 2 5/8" screw spacing. 
The tallest Elgin badge I've found so far is 3 3/16" tall, the outline that was in the paint on this bike was taller than that, closer to 3 5/8" tall. 
The lower outline of the badge is oval, but the top looks to have three points at the top and an undefined edge on the upper half sides, which are narrower than the lower half of the badge. 

I could easily fill the original holes and redrill it for an Elgin badge but I'd really like to know what this may have been day one, if only out of curiosity.


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## Mercian (Mar 2, 2022)

Hi @rustndust

I still can't answer your question fully.

Westfield's main production at this point appears to be for Sears/Elgin, certainly by number of survivors. I am unable to say whether the design was exclusive to Elgin.

Westfield certainly supplied bicycles to smaller 'Hardware' companies during this period, I have 28 surviving bicycles listed from this year out of around 164000, so 0.015%, so you can see there is plenty of space for even an order of 1000 bikes not to have survived.





You can see that there is also variation in frame types, and the last column records the chainwheel, of which there is a lot of variation, and, to some extent helps indicate the model. Assuming your chainwheel is original (I have described as '8 Slotted Disk'), then if it isn't an Elgin or Collegiate, then it's something that hasn't turned up yet, possibly a hardware store bicycle.

I hope this helps.

Best Regards,

Adrian


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## Mercian (Mar 2, 2022)

dirtman said:


> I had the bike shown above, those pics were from the guy who I got it from. I got it in a clean out or sorts early last March. I didn't do anything with it but did have a rough set of wheels for it. I sold it to a guy who wanted some of the parts I accumulated for it, plus a ton of other bulky items I needed to clear out in the name of space. He took four bikes, three frames, 8 wheels, and five tubs of older parts.
> It was badly slobbered with multiple layers of paint as yours was.
> The rear dropouts were mangled pretty bad so I didn't bother with it and included it in the lot I sold. It wasn't a complete bike, I had what is pictured above, plus a used set of wheels that needed spokes and hubs, and a ton of work to fix rust pitting that someone had painted over. There was also a mid 30's Western Flyer frame and fenders that went to the same buyer.
> The black frame I had came from the NYC area, it was part of a huge lot of parts I acquired all at once. I really didn't have any history on it other than I was doing a real estate buddy a favor by cleaning out the house and garage.
> ...



Hi @dirtman 

Thanks for your feedback. (-:

I see the number is actually E171103 / G9, not E121103. So, not the same frame as rustndust's, but it appears to be the same headbadge spacing and '8 slot disk' chainwheel. It was also made the same month though probably a couple of weeks later.

I have updated the s/n on my list.

Thanks,

Best Regards,

Adrian


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## rustndust (Mar 3, 2022)

How does the number E171103 fit into the chart?
If they were late production, could they have been in-between bikes maybe built for the Christmas rush?
Maybe left over frames after the contract quota was met that got badged with a different name?

I've got a box of spare parts that came with my Western Flyer, including a coffee can full of old badges, the only badge in the can, out of 44 of them, with 2 7/8" screw spacing is a brass Roadmaster badge, which is CWC not Westfield. 

Something I noticed on this frame is that the badge holes are off to the right about 3/16". If I set a badge on the headtube and align the holes the badge sits facing slightly to the right side of the bike. 

All of the original Elgin badges I've run into have been riveted in place, 
my bike has fine threaded holes. I test fit a few screws and it takes #0-80 threaded screws.

The two scxrws holes are centered top to bottom on the tube, just slightly off center to the right. 
They don't appear to be just drilled at random, they are perfectly spaced and squarely in line with the tube. 

The head tube is very thick, the area where the cups sit is machined into the tube, when the cups are in place, the inner lips of the cups are slightly shrouded by the edge formed in the tube. The head tube steel measures 0.280" thick, which is roughly 9/32" .
With the headset cup installed, the tubing is nearly thick enough to match the overall flared width of the cup. I can see that the headtube top and bottom are a combination of milled brass and steel with the cups removed. 

I had to pull the cups out from the outer edge, with the cups installed, there was no inner lip to get hold of. 
I've never seen this on any other bike before.


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## Mercian (Mar 4, 2022)

Hi @rustndust 

You are right, E171103 doesn't fit, because I got it wrong. 

Sorry about that.

Looking more closely (on a bigger screen!) it is E121103. Thanks for pointing it out, and I've re modified my chart.

So, just a coincidence that the next survivor after yours so far recorded was in very similar condition, and exactly 10000 frames later.

Best Regards,

Adrian


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## rustndust (Mar 6, 2022)

I was sitting here looking at various other bikes similar to mine trying to picture what it may have looked like when new. 
The part I can't get past is the black out components on it. If its 1940, its before the war. Were they already painting parts black in 1940? Since dirtman's bike appeared to be the same, that tells me this isn't just a 'one of' oddball someone did. 
The crank and sprocket were black, and I just went digging through a bunch of other parts I got with the bike, which I didn't think were related, but I found a black elgin hub. Thinking it was just a rusty hub someone painted silver, I tore it down and soaked off about 4 layers of paint, finally getting down to one last coat of hard to remove black that was badly chipped up. Further soaking got the hub down to bare steel. (Not aluminum or pot metal, its a steel hub with the trim bits added to it). The metal is sort of blued, not plated. The internals are decent, not perfect but not trashed. It was in a few buckets the scrap guy brought by a few days later that he said he had gotten from the same house, he figured I'd want them. 
There's a front hub that I've not cleaned up yet that's also painted black. 
Of course, there's also the possibility that the cranks, sprockets, both hubs and the headset were all swapped from a war time bike. 
Someone I showed it to locally said maybe it was an old frame that sat around and didn't get built until the war was on?

This is after stripping off layers of paint and some rust:


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## Mercian (Mar 7, 2022)

Hi @rustndust 

The Westfield processing of frames appears to be that when the frame was made, it was stamped with the year and month, but the serial number wasn't stamped on until the bicycle was completed. This is evident in that some replacement frames with only the date and no serial number exist, and that the serial number can be seen to have been stamped after the frame was painted on others. 

Westfield did occasionally keep frames in stock for a few months, but these were usually frames there was a low demand for, which is not the case with this one.

So, your bike was built up in 1940. Since blackout parts were not available until 1942, it was not fitted with these from new.

Best Regards,

Adrian


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## rustndust (Apr 4, 2022)

I'm still not sure what I'm going to do with the Elgin, the fork will need repair or replacement due to the bad threads. The easiest fix would be to find a springer fork for it and just put it together with what I have. But I'll likely just weld on a new steer tube.
The bike has no chrome, so right or wrong for now its going to get its crank and sprocket and other parts painted satin black.
If the weather finally breaks long enough for me to spray some paint, I'll give the frame a coat of primer for now.
The only wheels I've got are a set of 50's box pattern rims and the same for the fenders, I've got a pair of mid 50's Wald balloon fenders that I can use.
In reality all I've got is the frame and fork, with a crankset, seat post, and headset.
I still have no clue what the headbadge should be on this, I've got 11 different Elgin badges and none match the screw pattern or the original marks in the paint.
I can drill a new hole and make something fit, or just leave it without one for now. I haven't decided.
Its a ratrod bike at best at this point.


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