Soon I'll be bolting up the 1200 cc boat anchor to position the kickstand. The Kraft Tech frame is OK but all constructed with 1 1/4 inch tubing which makes it strong but heavy. Worse still, things like seat brackets to spring mounts won't fit, making for a lot of grinding. The fender brackets had to be cut down and repositioned. Mostly though I just drink beer and look at it, into the wee hours of my weekend evenings, while visions of clubmans and flat red rattle can tins dance in my drug-addled head. The frame is taking on a lovely burgundy hue and wouldn't it be a shame to powder coat over such beautiful, organic oxidation? I sprung for a PM rear caliper. Too much money and way too shiny, but looks pretty cool.
I also contemplate telling some customers to go to hell, and taking off on the Intergalactic Wart Hog to parts unknown.
One can't simply rush headlong into these things mate, I spent twenty months staring at a pretty much complete shovel dreaming of it's ultimate form only to realise while totally sober and sitting in my small, soulless, modern car that I didn't want to do it all . . . man, you're streets ahead, and, it's looking good too . . . go on, let the Warthog have it's head, been a while since the Great Flood Travelogue Saga, we need it too.
ReplyDeleteI left my old four-speed, sporty hard tail frame, tank and rear guard bare steel and they take on a lovely hue and unforced natural patina, I added a couple of asymmetric rattle can black stripes for decoration and just rode the pant's off it, there's just something really refreshing about wiping down your bike with a rag and a can of w.d. 40 if it gets too rusty you can always hit it with a rotary brass mop to shift the worst of the verdigris (yeah, I bought a really shiny billet-6 front caliper for mine too and it stuck out like a pimple on a pig's arse.......
DeleteAgree with Whitey. Fire up that thing and hit the open road. Customers can suck it. (That's what he said)
ReplyDeleteDo what you gotta do and be done with it! Customers aren't everything, just don't tell them that and everything will be fine... Point it down the road and let'er eat!
ReplyDeleteWhitey, notice your front end and 19 inch rim hanging there?
ReplyDeleteLoveless, you're helping to convince me to go bare-metal naked. I can always tear it down and powder coat if I want to go bling-bling, shiny and chrome later.
Laura, Paul, I'm feelin' ya'. I talked to a minister who had many conversations with people on their death bed. He said never once did someone say they wished they worked more often or regretted not making more money.
I wonder if anyone has ever wished they had spent more time on the internet.
DeleteThink I'm seeing a nick name for this mosheen here...Rusty...the boat anchor.
ReplyDeleteLarry, I prefer "Raymond, the slowly oxidizing lynchpin."
ReplyDeleteHell anyone can have a Bright-n-Shiney Mosheen! I think they are over-rated at best, I dig the Slowly Oxidizing Iron myself and if you scratch it all you have to do is nothing...? but WTF in Florida everything turns that color if you leave it outside long enough!
ReplyDeleteIt looks like an "Elwood" to me...
The internet is the widely considered to be the Devil incarnate, Laura.
ReplyDeleteYeah Paul, I'm convinced. I've always tended toward the Ratty. I originally intended to make this one shiny, with possibly a flame job on the tank, but I live on a gravel road, so any bike I own is forever filthy anyway.