I finally remembered to take a picture of the girl working on her bike.

She is cleaning the parts for the coaster brake in this picture. I am glad she doesn't mined getting a little dirty once in a while. The last items that needed to be cleaned where the wheels. I usually do those first. If the wheels need to be replaced the whole build could get delayed or scrapped, I knew these where okay and just needed to be cleaned so we did everything else first for some reason. 

Front wheel is on the bike and spinning good, just waiting for the help to finish up the rear wheel. 

The rear rack cleaned up very nicely as did the other shiny bits on the bike. Hopefully I can keep her from giving rides on the rack so we don't end up with a dent in the rear fender again. At this point she is getting very excited to see her new bike done and be able to ride it around.  

The finished product! I will put a bunch more pictures in the gallery. I tried to get some "interesting" photos of the bike but I am not a photographer so they may not be to good. I also used the flash on a few, they show the color and detail but look to stark for my tastes. 

I have been able to get a little more work done to the bike over the last few days, most of the cleaning has been done and I was able to start the assembly process (my favorite part). 

I was the most concerned with getting the reflective striping off and it proved to be a problem. I am not sure what this stuff is but it does not want to come off. 

I used this remover after trying the usual stuff like Goo Gone (light duty remover), and Goof Off (the usual fail proof remover). Neither of the old standby's worked and this stuff only worked on the white stripes on the forks, it would not touch the red stripes on the rear fender. 

I ended up slowly chipping the stripes off with a utility knife. Not the safest route if the paint is good but in this case I was not too concerned with the paint. A few extra chips in the paint are not going to be a big deal. Overall it worked out well. The bigger issue is the shine were the stickers were as opposed to the oxidized paint on the rest of the fender. I would normally polish the paint out but the pin striping  and lettering are very fragile and easily removed with polishing compound.

I straightened out the dents and dings in the fenders so now there is just paint chips. Front fender went from this :

To this:

And the rear fender went from this:

To this:

I also started to polish the shiny parts to see how they would turn out. This is what the stem and bars looked like when I started.

The stem turned out well, the pitting left on the bottom will be hidden once assembled.

Unfortunately the bars are just to far gone, they will be saved for another project that can use painted bars. 

After digging around for a while at my secret parts source I found another set of Schwinn bars that will work well. They are a bit bigger, most likely off of a 26" wheeled bike but otherwise they are the same. 

The crank and chain ring polished out very nicely and show little signs of wear. You can see the bottom bracket in the lower corner of the picture, nothing like "new" bearings from 1962. 

I need to change gears for a bit so I started putting some of the parts together. I really like the way this is looking at this point. 

That is about where things are at for now, wheels and rear rack will be next. 

This one has 24" wheels so it fits her petite 9 year old frame perfectly and if you know her personality, it fits that perfectly as well. We (she was helping) started the tear down tonight. As you will see from the pictures, the bike shows it's age but has a nice look to it. For now the plan is just a refurb, no paint involved. I like to keep the vintage look if I can. The shiny bits are a bit rusty and the chrome is flaking off but we will shine them up as best we can after getting the loose chrome off.

The stem was extremely stuck and it took quite a while to get it out. Unfortunately the wedge on the bottom broke off in the process so I will have to dig around for another one. The chrome on the underside of the bars is the worst spot.  

The rear rack should polish out nicely. 

She loves this seat, I think it looks pretty cool too. The sides are split where the white meets the blue but it is holding together so we will reuse it. 

Underside of the front fender still attached to the fork. Unfortunately while trying to get the stuck stem out I dented the fender..........got a little body work to do.  

More progress to come, that's enough for now.