A new beginning (P5): 1995 Kona Humuhumu-Nukunuku-A-Pua'a

This was delivered on Thursday courtesy of johnnypie13 (top bloke to deal with) minus those tasty Kooka cranks
There's already quite a story regarding how it came into my possession but I won't go into details for now.
This is how it is sitting at the moment while I wait for new bits and pieces to arrive, nothing much to look at yet I know.
A lot of people aren't gonna like this thread (way to start my first build thread!) as I won't be restoring it to it's former cruiser glory but I'm willing to live and die by my decisions.........probably die.
More pics to come as bits arrive and get fitted.

Be kind........

You don't see a awful lot of Kona's down this way, let alone a Humuhumu-Nukunuku-A-Pua'a.

Looking forward to seeing this progress.

Well I'm sad to see it go but happy for you mate it was a long and sordid tale but it has finally arrived with you

and i personally like the plans you have for it and to hell with what other people think its yours to do with what you please, and if it gives you joy riding it who can complain

I love Humuhumunukunuku apu'aa's, build it the way you want it. You might offend a small amount of the true purists on here, but most are happy to see classics being loved and ridden

On-one Mary bars arrived this morning. Got to wait for tyres from Germany and stem coming from Finland before any more gets done

Still needing a nice 350-400mm silver seat post in 27.0 if anyone has one for sale???

How far down are you?

So after receiving an absolutely mint Velocity stem in the same colour as the P2's from Timo in Finland I'm gutted to discover that there is no way the bends in the Mary bars are going to fit through the clamp on the stem

Do I stick with the stem and get a different set of bars or find a more suitable stem?

Tried opening it up some?

A pair of flat head screwdrivers will work to open it. A towel and mole grip will re-close it. A friend did this with a Syncros he got a while ago for a high rise bar.

Tried opening it up a bit but scared to go too far. The Mary bars have some pretty serious bends and the clamp on the stem is pretty wide which when put together is not a good combination. Already scratched the sh*t out of the bars. I think these bars will need a stem clamp with bolts top and bottom which might even be a bit of a problem finding in a quill type. Think I might have to go with some gentler riser bars

So I finally managed to get the Mary bars into the stem without breaking either! I've scratched the bars down to the bare metal in several places so a major amount of touching up will be required. Having spent so much time and effort fitting them, not to mention ruining the appearance of the bars in the process I decided I should at least see if I liked the riding position so I quickly put the chain and a pair of pedals on and took it for a spin round the block. Still plenty of work to do with the routing of the cable to the hub and getting the chainset sorted etc etc but the riding position is excellent, due mainly to the profile of the bars.
Anyway the photo's a bit small and grainy but here it is at the moment, the plus point being you can't see the state of the bars