Woo hoo! I found something that is kinda cool to actually blog about rather than the drivel I had been spewing up the last couple days.

I'm building a new hardtail bike. Let me clarify that... I'm building a hardtail bike out of all the spare parts I have laying around, the only thing new so far is the headset. I'm doing this for a few reasons.

1. I have most of the spare parts lying around.
2. The parts I don't have I'll be getting off my Heckler as it is in MAJOR need of some parts. (New shock & headset are on their way, and a new drive-train is coming next month.)
3. I don't have a hardtail. Sure my shock has a lockout, but it's not the same.
4. Fun!

So the first thing I need to do is prep the frame. Since it's a Cro-moly frame, that means it can rust. And there are plenty of small spots on the frame of rust. So I started sanding. With paper. It sucked! I was flying through the paper, and nothing was coming off! So to take a break I fitted a small wire wheel brush to my Dremel and started on the fine work. That went well, until my brush flew apart. So I thought for kicks I'd throw one of the sanding drums on. I started going to town! I completely finished one chainstay. Then hit the head tube. I started hitting various other sections just at random and cleared a bunch of it. After two drums I noticed a larger wire wheel. I threw that into the drill and got working. I'm thinking I would like a larger wheel in more of a Dremel form factor. I may have to buy a wire wheel and go over to Eric's work to use his air tools if he'd be up for it, as I think they would handle easier than a drill. As it got dark I called it a night with that and headed inside. I took some pictures, and will try to document the whole process.

[lightbox http://www.waterman981.com/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=54271&g2_serialNumber=2][/lightbox]

So right now I'm thinking of going with a flat black. That might look gnarly. I could just clearcoat it, but I would have to really work on prettying up the frame. Flat black is simple, yet bad. Oh well, I'm a ways from painting. Time for Chuck and Castle!