Airborne Head Tube Badge

[Awkward Kid]

And here i was thinking you'd bought her for the girl on the top tube like i did?! I'll have a search and dig out the german forms that i got my info from. Get her built so i can see how she looks. You'll be super happy with it once ridden! Awesome bikes!

 

[WD Pro]

the girl has long gone :-( The frame is now ready for blasting - headset out, brake boss retapped, flatted off etc

I have made contact with a local company with a booth big enough to get it in and sent them some pics of the bits I did for the Marin as I want the same finish - should have some answers on Monday

WD

 

[Wold Ranger]

Airborne

I'll do a run of pix when I get a mo, Airborne remain a mystery as a company, with very little info on them, but I have seen many frames and they all seem different in some way or other, particularly with the drop outs, even the tone of the metal seems to vary, some have machined head tubes internally (mine does) others externally.

 

[Wold Ranger]

Pix

Sorry for delay, some pix of my Lucky strike with some detail, it's a really bright polished finish and no disc tabs so an early one, but who made it?
All the other ones I've seen were a different finish, shot peened or much duller, with typical far eastern style welds, I did some research on the Early Airbornes and one of the former directors was quoted as saying they were made in differing countries and by differing contractors.
Van Nicholas were nothing to do with them, just bought some of the stock and designs, not the business, Airborne gave an unlimited lifetime guarantee on their frames, even if you were not the original owner, so quite a few got seriously abused and broken, which were then replaced under warranty, this got them a bad name ( and cost them dearly) which is why they folded.

 

[WD Pro]

colinr - I think you may be right with 2002 ish

World Ranger - I think yours is a early 2000

I am quite sure that mine is in the middle of the early 2000 and late 2000 DB versions.

It has the early 2000 frame geometry (short stays and head tube) but with the late 2000 frame features (head tube and drop out design, style of disk tab etc). Later models got the bullet stay ends and dropouts similar to colinr’s pics.

I found my info using the link posted in retro chat about the website that searches historical / archived internet I was selfish though and (at the moment) have only downloaded the info relevant to my year / frame features

I have passed all the stuff on for the archive :

http://www.retrobike.co.uk/gallery2/mai ... emId=82110

Its better to open the articles (PDF format) as some have second pages and just to view the first page (on some of them) is a bit boring as some of the pictures / links are broken and could not be found by the search engine :-(

WD

 

[Wold Ranger]

Airborne

Spoke to the ex CEO of the original Airborne, way back and he reckons mine was a US built pre production run, hence no Disc mount, all the commercial ones had disc mounts, the polished finish, lack of external head tube reinforcing ring and longer head tube all give it away and the code numbers etched onto every tube, with the spec of the Ti- butting etc also. 93/94 was suggested.

 

[lumos2000]

how about this for the headbadge http://www.headbadges.com/id74.html

 

[WD Pro]

Thanks dude Another member has also pointed me in the direction of Jen's site as they had this made for them :

If one hasn't turned up by the time the bike is built (or it gets to my birthday ) I think I may look at commissioning Jen to do one for me

Cheers,

WD

 

[Wold Ranger]

Badge

I would buy a sheet of 1mm or so stainless sheet (soft so easy to work with) and cut yourself a badge out using combination of drill and file? Then epoxy or foam tape the badge in place?

 

[WD Pro]

Stainless isn't soft / easy to work with :shock: !

But I have been thinking similar ;-) I have the badge drawn in cad with the idea of getting them water cut in stainless. The only problem will be rolling them to the same rad as the headtube and keeping the axis on the centre line of the badge :?

There is a member on here who can water cut stainless so I might still give it a go ...

I will post the artwork I have done when I am back in work in the new year - it's on my work pc :-(

WD