(MBBO#05 Class 1) 69' Fastback 100 - That's a Canadian Chopper eh?

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Not too much progress since I was away for Canadian Thanksgiving weekend and I have a 12 week old daughter that is keeping me busy. Got some parts in the mail. My tire set and my kick stand showed up. I also ordered some tools that I should have have ordered a long time ago. Got a park tools HCW-11 to make easy work of removing the pesky bottom bracket.

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Frame, fork, and chain guard are ready to go for powder coating. I just have to pick a colour. What do you think guys? I'm leaning towards something blue. Definitely not orange!!
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ditto on the wrench, going to have to get me one of those.

As for color, depends how original you want to look - if you prefer a 'could have been' look, then I always liked the Chopper light-medium blue color.
But if you want Kustom, then go for it and do a bright candy or metalflake job :) .
 
That GTR is cool.
Looking forward to what you do with the Fastback.
 
That GTR is cool.
Looking forward to what you do with the Fastback.

Thanks!! I'm new here, but I've checked out a lot of your builds. I appreciate getting comments from such great builders. I'm planning on learning way more about fabrication. I have lots of ideas but I don't quite have the metal working skills yet.

I have another build on the go, but it wouldn't qualify for the MBBO unless I put apes on it.
http://www.ratrodbikes.com/forum/in...doo-mx-850-canadian-bmx-bicycle-78-80.100613/
 
Okay. so I'm waiting for powder coat, parts to arrive from the UK, and it seems the only thing left to tinker with at the moment is the seat. I mentioned in an earlier post that I would be teaching myself how to sew. Well, I think I did it and now I'm wondering why I didn't pick this up a long time ago. I'm going to show you the main photos, but keep in mind, I practiced a lot on scrap pieces before I did the final seat cover.

I went to a local upholstery shop and bought a scrap piece of 1/4" seat foam for $2, and a black vinyl remnant for $5. The most expensive thing I bought was the spray adhesive which Pete tells me is the best stuff. It was $20 a can, and I used it to glue the seat vinyl to the foam.

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I used the old seat cover to make cardboard templates, cut out the pieces and was off to the races.

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Once I had the middle piece of vinyl cut, I used the spray adhesive to stick it to the foam. I then marked 1 inch lines on the pack of the foam as a guide for sewing.

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The hardest part is sewing the three pieces of vinyl together because of the curved sections. Called up mom for some advice and she told me I needed to cut some slits around the corners. Makes sense!

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I still have to fit the seat cover to the pan, but I need to work a few kinks out of the metal and maybe get some new foam. We'll see.
 

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Made a trip back to the upholstery place to day and my new friend Pete gave me some excellent tips as well as a great deal on some more vinyl remnants, some foam and some marine grade thread which I didn't use on the first seat. The first time we met, I mentioned that I was a wood shop teacher, and Pete has asked me to make him a custom rolling pin for make perogies. Hey man, if I can get access to great materials for a great price, I'll make you a rolling pin. Maybe I can even get some perogies.

The original foam probably would have worked for this seat even though the main section of the seat was pretty tattered. The new foam was cheap so I decided to go with it. As I was cutting the pieces, I had a feeling that the foam was a little thicker than the original, but I figured it would just compress a little more. I didn't bother to shape or round the edges either which worked out fine. I punched out the little circles on the edge of the vinyl that grab the hooks on the seat pan. This was done with a leather punch and a hammer.

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The foam pieces were spray glued together and the final foam assembly was stuck to the seat pan. I was pleasantly surprised with how well the cover fit over the foam and the pan. The only issue with these old pans, is the metal hooks that hold the vinyl in place can break off. Fortunately I only lost one.

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I used some brass grommets I had laying around, but found they worked best with a black plastic washer under them so the vinyl would not pull through. I don't have a picture because I didn't have enough hands, but I cinched the grommet together in the vice rather than hitting it with a hammer. Turned out pretty good. In the future, I will probably lessen the thickness of foam around where the grommet fits.

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I wish I could do work like that! Very talented at upholstery, are you!


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Wow, for some reason I thought that we had December to build and then I realized Dec 1st is the deadline. I hope my powder coater gets his fill hunting and has some time to work on my frame. Yikes!!

My daughter just turned 3 months old and I've been squeaking in every extra half hour to work on stuff. Today I had a chance to look at decals. The Fastback is pretty straight forward. But, it can still be time consuming to redraw letters in Adobe Illustrator. Luckily tonight, I was able to use a little time-saving trick that sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. I use a site called Fontsquirrel.com. It let's me input an image of text and will automatically tell me the closest font it can find. If you use a decent image you get decent results. Then if you're lucky you can download the font for free somewhere. I was quite happy to find a really close match. All I had to do in Illustrator was play around with the scale, height and spacing of the letters. Woohoo!! I have a vinyl cutter at work, so I'll be able to cut these decals out this week.

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The only thing I forgot to do was measure the size of the chain guard before I took it for powder coating. I did find a picture online and have the basic decal drawn. I might have to tinker with the sizing once I get an accurate sizing of the chain guard itself.

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Here's an interesting story to tell as the Dec 1st deadline approaches. As some of you may know, my sissy bar in my Fastback 100 was proper stuck and not in great shape. I didn't have to, but I had to, cut it in half to get it out. So apparently they are not as easy to find as I had hoped. My options:

1. Weld, straigthen, re-chrome original. NO
2. Re-pop from Ebay UK for $160 all in. I hope not.
3. MK2 used bar from Patrick $60. Maybe.
4. Ebay auction ending in 5 days with current bid of 19.99. Maybe
5. Non chopper sissy bar. Last resort.

Here's the interesting part of the story. I'm learning a lot about choppers/fastbacks and their finicky parts. Apparently, I didn't know that the MK1 sissy bars have the seat support tabs on the inside instead of the outside. If I end up finding an MK2 sissy bar, I'll need spacers. Apparrently finding the earlier sissy bars, which I need for my Fastback is a little harder. I emailed the ebay sellers in the UK and they're looking at doing some. Probably not possible to get it here in time though. Anyway, the worst part of the story is this, and maybe later I'll realize that it's not the worst part of the story because something better was meant to be... The seller with an MK2 sissy bar on ebay with a current bid of 19.99 US is messing with my head for sure. Because the auction was ending in a painful seven days with time ticking off of the build clock, I emailed and asked if he had a 'buy it now' price in mind. He emailed back and said, "make me an offer I can't refuse and I MAY end the listing early". Not the response I was hoping for, so I didn't bite. What the seller neglected to tell me was, he had an additional bar which he promptly listed 2 days later for a 'buy it now' price of $34.99!?!? When I questioned him later, he said that the one he sold was not in as good of shape as the one still listed. It never occurred to him that I might be interested!?!?

I'm sorry, but if this seller is any one of you guys or someone you know, I'm just a little confused by the fact that he didn't extend the offer to me after my original request. Is he somehow saving me from an inferior bar. I don't know. I checked the pics and it looked good enough for me. But alas, those parts always look great in the pics, and then you open the shipping box and wonder why you forked over all that cash. Sigh.....

So, anyone have an early MK1/Fastback 100 sissy bar with tabs on the inside and shiny chrome???
 

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