Author Topic: Enola Gay. (Read 7098 times)

Midschoolfool · « **on:** June 17, 2018, 03:30 PM »

"Big, American, heavy and hard to fly". Perfect.

Back in '97 I had a 96 STA.

AKA "The Standard Standard". Mostly because everything on it that could be a SBC part was. So bars (4pc strip) stem, fork, frame, seat post, seat clamp. The only thing it really wanted was a 3pc but they were still very expensive then. You were looking at £200 for a hookup and then a sprocket on top.

Any way, time has gone by and I've built a few bikes now so I fancied doing something that I had actually owned. I found a busted STA on Ebay for £70.

Well, when I say busted what I really mean is "Some guy cut off the brake so he could run micro drive".

Poorly. I wouldn't mind, but he then sent it for powder. Why? why not sort it properly? IDK man, people huh?

Any way, the frame arrived and I bought myself one of these.

And.

I will be working on the brake plate. Having fitted a Boomerang the other week to my Carlo Griggs bike I know that with some patience you can do it without strapping it down.

I found a 2012 Stolen Score for £199 delivered.

Which provided me with nearly all of the parts I needed. Obs a couple of things were needed so seat clamp.

Chain (you will see why shortly)

Sprocket (28t, bigger than the 25 I got with the Stolen)

Nice quality, nice and thick.

Design

And.

My mate has a mill and is machining it for me. Whilst that is being done I ordered blue brake cables.

Skin wall 110PSI (Fly Campillera)

Bar ends (blue)

Brake pads.

And a BB adapter (already got a 19mm Euro BB)

OK so I then basically drew up all of the graphics so I could cut them myself and did a test cut.

I then drew the rest.

Now I was going to put this on the chainstay.

But at that point my brain kicked in and said "Sod it, just do it custom and badass" And thus, here is what I drew.

And the TT decal.

oldschoolace · « **Reply #1 on:** June 17, 2018, 03:37 PM »

Nice build idea! Loving the 80s freestyle keyboard

Midschoolfool · « **Reply #2 on:** June 17, 2018, 04:00 PM »

Cheers Ace ! I have a thing for tiny keyboards. That is my home one, with "miami" keys on. At my mother's I have the same board (only with brown switches instead of blues) and "French Fries"

Quite funny really, the keys costing almost twice as much as the keyboard lol. Needs must I guess

Decal sheet 1 is now complete.

Just a couple of small ones to do. This is what I will be using. Mirror blue chrome.

I think what really inspired me was getting ripped for £35 every time I wanted a sheet of stickers. I know that dudes have a living to make, but there are various sites on the bay that will print stickers on enormous sheets for practically nothing. Only one problem, I don't know how to draw in vectors. So I am stuck on Photoshop. However, what I can do is draw scaled decals as silhouettes to then cut.

I pay £1.98 for three A4 sheets of that stuff up there. A full set of decals will probably use two sheets......

But yeah. This time I just decided to f**k it and to hell with tradition and rules. A couple of times I have tried to keep my bike as period correct and etc as I can but IMO it spoils the end product. I've shaved off the brakes so what I have is very similar to the 93 proto that was brakeless.

Midschoolfool · « **Reply #3 on:** June 17, 2018, 04:13 PM »

Amendum lol.

Frame is being powdered black by none other than SBD.

Edit to add, decals should be about done.

I just need one of these. Will email Del in the morn.

Midschoolfool · « **Reply #4 on:** June 19, 2018, 04:32 PM »

OK so today I began test cutting the decals. The first attempt was pretty bad. Not only did it drag the blade all over the vinyl (scratching it really bad) but certain things were not right.

The rivets are simply too small.

I did manage to rescue one damaged plane for a rough idea, though.

So I refined the graphics for a couple of hours, then tried again. Sadly I am out of blue for now so I had to switch to scrap matt gold.

Much better ! I also cut two planes, but it still needs a bit more meat on the front end.

Midschoolfool · « **Reply #5 on:** July 08, 2018, 02:43 PM »

That's that done. I did cut some of the decals, then had a plotter malfunction on the last piece of vinyl I had. Doh.

oldschoolace · « **Reply #6 on:** July 08, 2018, 03:40 PM »

Nice! What did the machining set you back ( if you don't mind me asking)
I've always had the idea to waterjet myself a zeronine disc but it's a design that could easily be cut

Midschoolfool · « **Reply #7 on:** July 09, 2018, 12:13 PM »

Nothing. A friend of mine bought a mill (manual) and a lathe last year so any time I need any small parts made or altered he does it for me. A few of my bikes are running on parts he made now and axle adaptors and so on.

oldschoolace · « **Reply #8 on:** July 09, 2018, 12:34 PM »

Great stuff, Love a bit of home brew

ED209 · « **Reply #9 on:** July 12, 2018, 06:36 PM »

this thread rules

Midschoolfool · « **Reply #10 on:** July 14, 2018, 12:08 PM »

"You can't teach an old dog new tricks".

No, probably not. But you can sort of teach an old man to ride a bowl. Sort of..

Had a meet up the other night with my mate and his kid. Now bear in mind I only ever rode street. No ramps, no bowls nothing (there just wasn't any to ride where I was in the mid school). Any way, we got to Southsea and my mate says "We should start on the ramps". I said "Nah, I wanna do bowls !". I had seen that shit where you come flying down, then use the momentum to whip you onto the walls. So I did this one twice.

But of course as usual I wanted to go to the next level a bit too quickly, so got onto this one..

First run down I was just laughing so much. God, what fun ! I decided first one to just ride up the bowl end and pop out.. Second run I went for it. Got myself up on the wall but it whips you around so quick you barely get a second to think. Before I knew it I was at the end of the bowl. I forgot to turn in.. So I got to the bit on the right and just slid from the top of it to the bottom.

Skin and concrete doesn't mix

Still very high on adrenaline I decided to roll in from a ramp on the left and do the jump box here in the middle.

Came flying down, went to pull up and the bars came back lmao. How I didn't die is a mystery. I knew then it was time to turn in for the night. An omen, if you will. Got to meet Effraim though which was KILLER.

The bike is on hold now for a few days lol. Somehow waking up yesterday and getting through the day was more painful than scrubbing with an exfoliating sponge and then spraying on isoprop to make sure nothing got infected. Spent most of yesterday in bed feeling sorry for myself but it's scabbing over now.

I got in a large piece of mirror chrome blue vinyl, so maybe later today I will move onto trying to cut the two downtube decals

Midschoolfool · « **Reply #11 on:** July 14, 2018, 01:29 PM »

Decided to give the new vinyl a try. Wow, so much better than the other stuff (which was like foil and easy to damage and kink !).

Here are the others, but I may do these again on this new (better) vinyl.

Midschoolfool · « **Reply #12 on:** July 14, 2018, 06:42 PM »

Avro · « **Reply #13 on:** July 14, 2018, 07:30 PM »

The 'Standard Byke Co' decals look a little like something a lady might buy from Ann Summers...

Midschoolfool · « **Reply #14 on:** July 15, 2018, 12:36 PM »

Quote from: Avro on July 14, 2018, 07:30 PM

The 'Standard Byke Co' decals look a little like something a lady might buy from Ann Summers...

Then vibra power are missing a trick.

Right I fitted the test cut decals last night and the planes have to go.

I have two options. Lop off the tail, or just go with a simple "Enola Gay" in text using the font. I think I am going to go with the latter, then build a custom stand and put the plane decal on that

Midschoolfool · « **Reply #15 on:** July 17, 2018, 07:35 PM »

Right, decided to stick to my original plan.

Those will do. Now I just gotta pack it up and send it off to Dan.

Midschoolfool · « **Reply #16 on:** July 21, 2018, 03:35 PM »

This was kinda important, given my frame is indeed OP.

I was going to do a ton, then I realised I would only ever use one or maybe two tops lol.

Midschoolfool · « **Reply #17 on:** July 21, 2018, 05:44 PM »

Oops, actually I lied. *now* I have a full set.

Midschoolfool · « **Reply #18 on:** January 08, 2019, 06:01 PM »

I'm back. Loads of things conspired to stop me finishing this. First there was the crash at Southsea, then I had a chain snap on my Haro and smashed my knee in. Then winter happened, and I could not find any one to powder the frame locally and really didn't want to send it off. So it kinda stalled, with winter and other things all getting in the way.

Today I finally found a powder coater who can fit me in, so I am dropping off the frame fork and bars tomorrow. I still needed to find a decent rear brake for a drilled brake, so when this came up on Ebay (very expensively, but fook it)

I had to. I also ordered this to save me from using the stubby post that came with the Stolen.

And of course this, totally befitting the Enola Gay.

I've got absolutely everything else, so with any luck in a couple of weeks I will be taking spanners to it.

Midschoolfool · « **Reply #19 on:** January 16, 2019, 03:21 PM »

And the last of the parts. Given my 97 had Ame (and so did all of my other bikes during that time) I got these.

I wanted Total Killabee tyres but they are killa expensive (like £45 per go) so I got these instead. They are totally fake "killa" tyres (they are actually called that)