American PatriRat - part II

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OK, here is my finished '61 Schwinn American. Since the bike was already blue & white, I added some red and played up on the name "American". Without further preamble...

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Original build thread is here: http://www.ratrodbikes.com/forum/viewto ... 55&t=39861
Well, I wound up replacing the stem with an alloy road stem (the one on it was too small for the steer tube anyway) and the handlebars with a set of Velo Orange "Belleville" bars. I originally had an arched flat bar on it, but this one is more the shape I originally envisioned. The red anodize finish is actually a Duplicolor paint called Metalcast. Red Innova tyres on a new set of alloy wheels with a single-speed Shimano hub, painted white. The grips are NOS Schwinn grips for a Stingray. They didn't fit on easily - the bars are slightly larger than standard at about .910" in diameter. I needed to soak the grips in hot, soapy water to coax them on. I suspect they'll never come off again without cutting them.

The tail light is a Cateye LED lamp, bolted onto the original reflector hole in the fender. I made a little shroud for it to fair it in. The shroud slides off for switching the light on/off. The false-tank is light model airplane plywood I bought at a hobby shop. I cut out 3 of them originally, then decided to use the second two as "wings" mounted to the rear triangles. I was thinking about doing a tail fin on the rear fender, but decided against drilling any new holes in it. The plywood pieces have 4 coats of urethane on them to the smooth them out, then are painted in the Rustoleum. Also, thanks to axsepul for cutting out the star circle decals for me - I wasn't about to try to paint them.

I guess the last detail in the bullet-style headlamp. That's an LED unit as well - I wanted to make sure that I had good, highly visible lights on this thing because I do ride it a lot. In fact, I'd planned on doing more with it, but found I was riding it too much to have time to work on it much. So far, I've probably put over 100 miles on it, mostly on local rail & canal paths. So much so, that I've got to take apart the coast brake hub and clean the dirt/stone dust out of it. I even bought a coordinated Nutcase helmet to go with it. It helps that it was on clearance at REI...

So anyway, that's my American PatriRat. Hope you like it.
 
You need some Captain America Shield Wheels on that baby!
Hmmmmm, Maybe that will be my build next year!
You did Old Glory well!!
 

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