New Wheels!

Today we installed the wheels we had rebuilt after we put new white wall balloon tires on them. We also installed a new chain:

 

Jake shows us what the handlebar is going to look like on this maxi-size low rider.

Ennis, John and Jake are taking stock of the work ahead of us.

Rebuilding

Today we started rebuilding our cruiser. We installed a spring fork and a new crank with the original chain wheel, which John had cleaned up with steel wool. All the ball bearing cups, ball bearings and various other small parts are original and were cleaned by Ennis. We recycled pedals from another bike.

Painting

This week, we took advantage of the warm weather to prime and paint our cruiser:

(John is demonstrating for MS students how to spray paint without drips. Barret, Jake, Simon and Sarah gave it a shot too)

Learning new skills

 

Frame of our 1950s Monark Cruiser

Kevin is rebuilding his first wheel!

John and Jake are buffing spokes and rims with steel whool for Kevin

Ennis is sanding and wirebrushing the frame in preparation for painting

The Bicycle Mechanics Club is back!

Every Monday after school in the Fab Lab. Open to Middle and Upper School students. Come an join us and design your own bike:

(last year's team)

We started taking apart a 1950s ladies' Monark cruiser (made in Chicago) to learn the use of bike tools, and the basic design of a classic American bicycle. The back wheel is badly rusted and will need a new rim and some new spokes. We'll rebuild both wheels so they match, using recycled rims left from a previous project. Perhaps we'll customize it into a large Stingray style cruiser:

The Dean's Bike

Made from a discarded 1970s Raleigh Sport frame and customized to look like a 1900s path racer...

... with a single speed coaster hub and a home made stenciled disk wheel:

JE's Cruiser is Finished!

New Schwalbe Fat Frank balloon tires:

Seat recovered with leather recycled from an old leather jacket: 

 

 Ready for college:

What the kids are up to these days...

JE is painting the 1947 Hawthorne cruiser a refreshing turquoise.

JD is painting a night sky on the fork of his single-speed light-weight cruiser.

GM is fixing and cleaning his mountain bike.

 

We got to use our brand new truing stand, donated by Allan Marcum '74 and the adjustable wrenches given by the Arnold family: thank you!

Highlight: RK, painting

6th grader RK is customizing a bike for his little sister. She requested that it be painted pink!

After a thorough sanding and a good coat of primer, RK takes adantage of the unusually warn weather this week to paint outside.

Tools!

We are so thankful to the parent association for launching a call for used tools on our behalf and for allowing us to buy the bicycle mechanic tools that we needed:

 This tool chest, donated by the Albanese family, helps us organize our supplies.

We now have a pump, some cone wrenches, some spoke wrenches, Allen wrenches and tire levers(donated by the Ogden family), a chain tool, a standard and metric set of wrenches.

We have a really cool bike stand, on which JD has set his frame while it's being sanded and filed before a coat of paint.

New project: 1947 Hawthorne cruiser

We found this 1947 Hawthorne Cruiser in pretty good shape on Craigslist and started to fix it. We realized that the chainwheel was not original, and found an old school one from our spare parts bank, which fits perfectly (not pictured here). The chainguard is missing to, and we found one on ebay from a prewar Hawthorne, which will need some modification to be installed.

 6th grader RK is removing the rust from the rims to bring back out the original chrome.

Meeting # 7 - Test-Driving - 12/21/2015

After we mounted the new fork and front wheel on Friday with the US students, we test-drove our cruiser today on the parking lot. Verdict: it's awesome! I rides so smoothly, with perfect absorption of road bumps. We will have to change the handle bar stem though as the one we used must be a millimeter too small. 

The last piece of work on this bike will be the stencils, with which we've been experimenting in the FabLab with the help of Mr. Wallis who taught us how to use the school's cameo cutter.