1936 Hawthorne/Silver King build

[h.i.]

Thought I would do a thread on this bike even though it may take a long time to get it built. I spend most of my free time on car projects, so this is a bit of a sideline to that. I bought his frame at a (car) swap meet last spring, and posted it on here looking for ideas for the frame repair. There were some passionate responses. I don't really need more crap hanging on the wall and I want to ride this thing around the pits at Bonneville next year, so I set about doing some surgery to make it useable. This is probably not the best way to do this, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. Some pics of the damage to start:

Top tube:

Busted dropout

 

[h.i.]

Re: 1936 Hawthorne build

I had a lot of ideas how to go about this, but they all relied on the integrity of the repair at the front of the lower stay. Well, that repair is probably as bad as anything else on this frame, so I'm going to try this:

First thing was get an old forged fork and straighten it out:

Secure the patient for surgery

Bad news

Special tool #8776943

Sneaking up on it

Reshaping the fork some more

Almost home!

And that's where I am right now. Next thing is shorten the steerer tube a few inches and lock it in to the bottom bracket. Then I need to make some new rear dropouts and figure out how to blend them in. Trying to make it look as natural as possible. I'll update this thread as soon as I make some more progress. Cheers!

 

[h.i.]

Re: 1936 Hawthorne build

I have been working on this a little bit, thought I would update the post in case anyone is watching, haha.

I got the fork to match the contour of the frame as close as possible. This was not easy, and it's still not perfect, but it's as close as it will get

chopped off the old dropouts

Made a sleeve/mount deal for the steerer tube to seat in the BB and forgot to take more pics

 

[user 135]

Re: 1936 Hawthorne build

Very cool to seem to different fab work to get this old frame rideable.

 

[h.i.]

Re: 1936 Hawthorne build

Mounted the fork

I added some material to the fork to make a fatter channel and add chain adjustment. Drilled and tapped some holes, and mounted a wheel.

Time to roll it outside for some mockup pics to decide what fork to use. I put the springer together from mismatched parts and made the dropouts for that, too. The gap is way too big between the wheel and the fork, so I will run the original. Plus it just looks better to me.

Stock fork:

So that's it for now. The hard part is done! I need to get some more stuff for the skiptooth drivetrain and I will post when I get the rest built.
It's amazing what you can do when you don't know you can't do it.

Cheers!

 

[deorman]

Re: 1936 Hawthorne build

Good idea, hope it works out under load. :|

 

[h.i.]

Re: 1936 Hawthorne build

Thanks guys! It works fine under a static load of me sitting on it. My cool guy seat mount promptly bent as soon as I sat on it, but the frame seems fine. Probably stronger than new.
I'll post up some more as I get some more done.

Thanks!

 

[sleepy]

Re: 1936 Hawthorne build

Nice work and great save of an otherwise busted frame! 8)

 

[scott brownsey]

Re: 1936 Hawthorne build

looks great nice work

 

[LukeTheJoker]

Re: 1936 Hawthorne build

Nice job to save that frame. Only thing that would worry me is the rear dropout bolts acting like pivots, is it possible to weld the dropouts instead of/as well as bolting them?
Agree on the original fork, much nicer look than the springer. Cool work!

Luke. :wink:

 

[h.i.]

Re: 1936 Hawthorne build

Thanks Luke. Not sure what you mean, tho. The bolts attach the stays to the fork. The steel fork extends all the way through to the bottom bracket and is very solid. There is no pivot point.

 

[h.i.]

Re: 1936 Hawthorne build

Hi

Thought I would update this if anyone was interested. I finished (at least for now) this bike with great results. Took a little bit, but after about 10 miles or so I got used to the riding position. My knees were not super happy but whatever. I put maybe 20 or 30 miles on it riding all over the pits at bonneville this year. I will try and post some better photos when I get to it. Thanks again for the ideas and comments.

 

[kensmurray]

Nice job saving an old Silver King. Looks awesome.
Kenny