'39 Firestone Twinflex

[supper15fiets]

...it sounds dirty ,but i love the long nipples...got them too on my dayton/national!
and the tires are also killer!!!!

 

[twjensen]

Which route

I really think the route you should go , would be to sell it to me.

I've had this for a while and was somewhat undecided as to the route I wanted to take with it. Originally the bike was to be painted and then aged to look original but the more I thought about it the more I really wanted to go all the way with this one. The hard parts to a restoration (for me at least) are all of the soft parts. The seat was toast, no tires and no grips. I was able to get my hands on some NOS condition Firestone High Speed tires and my mind was made up.

I sent the seat to Josh McRell in San Diego who did an excellent job on the seat. I couldn't be happier with the way it turned out. I tracked down some grips in NOS condition and put them on a set of very nice original chrome 28" crossbrace bars. The wheels were built today after I found a distributor for the correct size double butted spokes.

I'm still looking for a tank and fenders but I plan on having the parts I have sandblasted early this summer so that I can start the paint process and get this bike on the road!

Here's the bike when I got it.

Here was a second one I came across and robbed a few parts:

And here is the bike today:

Firestone High Speed tires on newly built wheels. Check out the spokes.:

Here is a better shot of the seat that Josh did:

Stamp:

 

[STRADALITE]

I asked Jason to put in a good word for me if he was happy with this seat that I restored for him.
Thanks so much for the praise and the pics that you posted.
The bike is lookin good.
JOSH

 

[ohdeebee]

Tank

Getting closer...

 

[supper15fiets]

nice,nice,nice,Keep up the good work!

 

[axsepul]

very nice!!!!

 

[GiovanniLiCalsi]

Are those double-butted spokes ?
Very nice before and after images!

 

[ohdeebee]

Are those double-butted spokes ?
Very nice before and after images!

Those are double butted and the butts (for lack of a better term) are very long, just like the original spokes on these old bikes. If anyone is interested, I can sell them or offer them on wheel builds.

 

[ohdeebee]

Progress!

I took some time today and mocked up the bike. Fenders still need to be modified and then its off to the sandblaster.

 

[bricycle]

Nice!!!
I especially like the headlamp mount.