Chicago Steel. Refurbishing a 1963 Schwinn American; single speed rust bucket.

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Beginning in 1963, Schwinn debuted beautiful Chrome fenders on the American. Previously they had been painted. This new look really transformed the bike.

It's the fenders that caught my eye on the craigslist post. It was a single picture showing a small part of the bike, clearly taken by someone in a hurry, just helping out a friend. It was put out there by the 80 year old original owner who was cleaning out her garage and selling her kids' old bikes. The bike looked like it had been stored for 30 years in the middle of an active sprinkler system. 

So. Much. Rust.

Before

All in one piece. All original and a rip-free seat. What more can you ask?

The tires were original, and irrecoverable

Pulled off the stained and dirty hand grips. There's hope for what might be underneath the rust.

That's a "Red Band" Bendix coaster brake under that layer of dirt and grease, though you can't see it (yet)

During

The de-rusting activities were extensive. I learned a lot. Here's my method:

Vinegar is amazing, and watch out. It's also dangerous... It will eat through more than you expect. It cleans off the rust, but it will also eat away many other things -- your metal, when taken out of the vinegar, will start rusting immediately so be ready.

I bought a 32 inch round dog-washing basin and filled it with 10 gallons of vinegar. I also bought 3 gallons of Evapo Rust and poured it into another large bin (28 inches long), and tipped it on its side 45 degrees to create a deeper well along the corner of the tub. I dumped everything that I had disassembled into one of the two -- vinegar treatment or Evapo Rust. 

Works well for wheels. No Dogs allowed...

This is my highly sophisticated, laboratory grade, method of getting more depth for a given volume of expensive Evapo Rust

The Evapo Rust works MUCH better overall than vinegar, and also doesn't eat through anything else. But, the vinegar is WAY cheaper. You can get 10 gallons for the price of one gallon of Evapo Rust.

• Into the vinegar went the disassembled front wheel. Twenty four hours later I took it out, and wiped off all of the rust.

• Then, with #0000 steel wool dipped in Evapo Rust, I polished clean every spoke, every spoke nipple, and every inch of the inside and outside of the rim.

• Then every inch of the outside of the rim was polished with aluminum foil and water.

The rear wheel, because of the paint on the Red Band Bendix, didn't go into the vinegar. It went into the Evapo Rust chamber. It took 4 days. One quarter of the rim treated each 24 hours, rotated.

All of it was cleaned first with Simple Green then de-rusted. 

Both wheels, all internals once cleaned, all other chrome parts, the cranks, handlebars, seat post, all nuts and bolts, and both fenders. It was a lot of elbow grease. A lot of Apple music, and a ton of time. Overall, it all came out really nicely -- the chrome is shiny, still mildly pitted from the age and the time set with rust, but overall I think it'll look really nice once all put back together. 

I'm not a chrome polishing expert, and maybe with enough time and energy you can get the chrome back to new, but for what I do, and for what I'm going for, which is a nice, rideable, great-looking bike, it's a total transformation. I'm really excited with the outcome. Here are a few pictures of it.

Yes, I wear gloves. This stuff turns your hands into leather

Amazing progression. Yes, that's a Whole Foods bag.

Top half hasn't been "steel wooled" nor "aluminum foiled" yet.

Looks great. You can see on closeup that there's still mild pitting in the chrome. Expected given the decades of rust. It looks so good overall. 

I do use that Concept2, by the way. I love it. Highly recommend it.

Totally transformed new front wheel

There's the red band!

The seat and the hand grips were both cleaned up. I soaked the hand grips in half bleach, half water for 48 hours then took a plastic brush to them. I was shocked with the outcome. Couldn't believe how nicely they cleaned up.

These were yellow and each surface was stained brown with crud. This bleach technique really works.

After - COMING SOON! I'LL POST UPDATES ONCE THE USPS DELIVERS MY NEW TIRES.