28" Hawthorne DeLuxe

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EvilJohnny37

EvilJohnny37

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So this lady came into the bike shop I work at with this monster. She found it in the basement of a house she just moved into and wanted nothing to do with it, so I jumped on it.
Here's what I know:
-It's a Hawthrone DeLuxe with 28" wheels and tires.
-It's been painted that horrid green with house paint (as of now, i have it partially stripped and the original color was blue with cream scallops).
-She's skip tooth with a sweet heart(?) sprocket with a broken rear hub (spins freely in both directions)
-Has a pretty wicked saddle (anyone heard of a Persons Motobike???)
-It's ooolld. and showing it.
hawthorne1.jpg

hawthorne2.jpg


Anyone have a guess at the age? what it's worth?

I think I'm going to go for a board track style with those 28's. anyone know where to get some new shoes for this thing?
 
Heres a pic of the head tube badge
hawthorne3.jpg
 
I dont know anything about it.... but i want it...
 
Cool find. I traded a frame like that to Oldy57 for a CCM a while ago. That bike had a truss fork with it. Depending on condition that seat could be worth $50 to over $100 on ebay.
The wheels go for good money, again depending on condition. My suggestion is to watch what parts are selling for on ebay (not what people are asking for). Some people ask for the moon and the parts don't sell. If you decide to sell it or some of the parts let me know. I am always looking for 28" wheels and from what I can see the seat looks pretty cool.
 
This guy at one point had the truss' on it, and that'd be cool to replicate. It's going to be a major revamp process though, whoever thought they were "repainting" this thing really got this house paint over EVERYTHING. seat rails, cranks, chain, everything... ugh. as of now, it's completely dissasembled and almost all the old paint is gone off the frame. i think some home made boardtrack bars are in order...

You have some awesome bikes boardtrackfan, and I'm using some of your builds as inspiration for this one.
 
before you do anymore work on the bike make sure you dont have anything special. that seats worth some bucks. look up motobike on the "cabe" website or find a book called "evolution of the bike". does it have wood rims or metal clad? its a great find love it when they come to you..
 
What's funny is I was actually just going to post up a question about those rims. they're tubular and they're metal clad with a wood core. super weird... never seen anything like it. was that more common than just bare wood rims? does it give a time period as to when this thing may have been built? on top of it all they're surprisingly true. the front tire holds air (relatively...) but the rear has a good tear in it. anyone know where to get replacements?

I don't plan on doing anything super funky with this thing like changing frame geometry, but it does need the repaint. bad too. i also got new bottom bracket bearings for it, the old ones were toast...

I already let my other skip tooth bike get away, I'm not going to do the same with this one :D
 
the rims you have are metalclads with a tire tube combo not easy to find "nos" but you can buy brand new for a price!!!i have a track bike that dates around late 1800's to early 1900's. yours could be mid 1900's.
as far as the paint ,try stripping off that brushed on paint you might be able to save the original paint.

jon
 
she's already down to bare metal :mrgreen:

I'll have some pics of it up soon
 
~BRIEF HISTORY LESSON~ Ignaz Schwinn saw balloon tires on bikes in Germany in the early 30s. US bikes used the glued on tires up until Schwinn introduced the B series with balloon tires in 1933. Other manufacturers quickly followed. My Hawthorne book starts with a fall 34 catalog page, showing that all hawthornes now used balloon tires, so yours is older than that at least. ~Adam
 
:shock: That's old! thanks for the info!
 
I have two 28" bikes and was able to buy a brand new tyre and tube yesterday that suited. It is possibe though that my bikes have very different types of tires and tubes to yours.
 
Well that semester was a long one.. and I haven't had much time to do anything bike related, but now that the sun is out and I'm out of school, I've finally been able to do something with this old bike

I had a skip tooth wheel set laying around so I rebuilt the rear hub and the bottom bracket and got a strong drivetrain one night.
The next night I rebuilt the headset put on a newer fork with actual drop outs and got some fresh rubber from my work.

Here's a pic of the old thing actually out and about. The girls bike is a 40's packard that my girlfriend rolls around on with me.

Not done yet. Planning a full resto. Fire engine red, cream tires, and a faux tank with Indian Motorcycle script spelling out "hawthorne" should be in order.

(Sorry about the bad sizing.. can't get stupid photobucket to cooperate)

hawthorne.jpg

hawthorneandpackard.jpg
 

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