Friday, October 20, 2006

Chuck's custom bike


I’m sure Chuck Schmidt will not mind if I share pictures of his pristine custom ‘dave moulton’ bike.

Built in 1983, Chuck is the original owner, and this is the original paint and chrome. A true hand built specimen, the concave seat stay caps for example, simply cut at an angle with a hacksaw, then filed with a large round file and an off cut of tubing fitted and brazed in place. Not measured but simply filed until they looked identical.




The rear brake bridge has a barrel shaped center boss that were custom made in a machine shop in England and I brought a supply of these with me when I moved to the US in 1979. The center boss was brazed to a piece of ½ inch diameter chrome-molly tubing, drilled to accept the brake bolt, then hand filed until it fit perfectly at the correct height and central between the seat stays.


Finally, the brake bridge re-enforcers were cut from a piece of steel tube. Shaped with a hand held belt sander; again not measured but shaped until they matched as a pair. Working in this fashion gave me great satisfaction, and means that this frame is unique.

2 comments:

Tim Jackson said...

My God Dave, that is one of the most beautiful examples I've seen in a long time. Amazingly gorgeous. WOW!

David R Ball said...

That is one beautiful bike.

In my humble opinion the Red Racer is the prettiest DM bicycle.

I remember asking DM why he didn't build a special bike for himself ?
He said he had to fill orders first.

If dave did build a special bike for himself, what would it look like ?