1946 Hetchins restoration

Lovely!
A friend of mine was given one of these because the guy who had it thought it had been bent in an accident :shock:

I like your plans for it.
Is the rear sprocket that's on it an inch pitch? If so, chains in that size are darn expensive, if you can find them! And chainsets the same. I'd Ebay the hub you have and go with your plans for updating.

Thanks for your comments fellas. The rear sprockets are just normal 1/8th sprockets, I was trying to fit a 5-speed chain to them, hence it wouldn't go. A normal single speed chain will probably fit.

Here are some pics of the wheels I have - two Airlight front hubs, one on an alloy Conloy(?) and one on a nasty chromed steel. I also have the double fixed Airlite rear on a Conloy, and a fixed/5speed-freewheel Harden hub on a nasty steel. I plan to use the Harden hub, rebuild onto a better rim, and one of the Airlites for the front. I think the Phil hub idea isn't going to work, because getting a 5 speed freewheel in 110mm dropouts is tricky, and I now quite fancy using these old hubs! They're in much better nick than I thought, and will look good once polished and rebuilt onto nice rims.
Cheers
Gareth

Thought I'd share some more pics of the various worn out bits I'm trying to cobble together.

Thankfully, Alistair at Wheelcraft has taken an interest in my project, and has agreed to sort my four elderly wheels out with new rims

Gnutti crankset:

Williams Crankset

Unknown hub. Any ideas? No marks at all on the central chromed spindle:

Nice work, have you decided which cranks out of the two you are using??

Neither, probably! The cottered BB is too loose in the shell, so I will probably get a cartridge square taper BB and some old Stronglight 49D cranks.

Plus I have yet to hear a good thing about cottered cranks, other than their originality! These steel beasts are quite tatty, very heavy, and the cotter holes have been a bit mangled.

Here's a few pics. Just taken it for a quick ride round the block. Feels very wobbly but it all seems to work!

That looks very nice Gareth!

Great bike from one of the worlds best builders!

garethuglow":n78njq32 said:

Neither, probably! The cottered BB is too loose in the shell, so I will probably get a cartridge square taper BB and some old Stronglight 49D cranks.

Plus I have yet to hear a good thing about cottered cranks, other than their originality! These steel beasts are quite tatty, very heavy, and the cotter holes have been a bit mangled.

Click to expand...

One good thing with the old steel cottered cranks, is that they can have an extremely low q-value, even narrower than the aluminum Stronglight and TA cranks. There's nothing good with the cotter interface though, it plainly sucks.

edit: Oh, I forgot! What is that round thing on the right fork leg?

Also, congratulations on having such a nice bike, it's really beautiful!

The thing on the fork leg is a mount for a light.

Thanks for the compliments