This is the bike as I bought it in Spring 2011. It's a 1976 Schwinn Sting-Ray frame. The pedals and crank may be original, but I'm not sure. The chain guard is original and unprimered and the rear fender is original and rusty. The seller said both wheels and tires are new Chinese stuff. The sissy bar is new and the seat says Schwinn but the seller said it's a repop. The spring fork is new (but rusty) and the stem and handlebars are new, too. The frame is primered.
I got into this because I was reading about the infamous pinstriper Von Dutch and saw in a couple of different books that Suzanne Williams (wife of lowbrow artists Robert Williams) had found a Sting-Ray frame painted and striped by Von Dutch back in 1967. She and her nephew Aaron Kahan built it into a "1960s style muscle bike" in the mid 1990s. The photo of that bike with it's super-high sissy bar and ape hangers infected my brain and I decided I wanted to build a muscle bike that would have been my ideal back in the day.
In poking around the internet I found this Forum and started reading the posts. After I bought the bike I joined the Forum and began to ask questions. As I build the bike, I'll post updates until it's done. Thanks for all the help you've given me so far and please keep it coming!
