Author Topic: ACME aussie bike  (Read 427 times)

Offline cardan

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Re: ACME aussie bike
« Reply #15 on: June 01, 2025, 05:49:42 AM »
Yes "maker" is good, or even "builder". Both are probably more accurate than "manufacturer". "Assembler" is a bit special, and in my mind I keep this for those who opened the crate and literally put the parts together. There was a bit of this in Australia in the early days: I suspect the Sun Villiers in veteran years is a good example. Most Australian makers/builders started with imported lugs and parts, and local "vision", and went from there.

Rims either side of the WW2 years is an interesting topic! It turns out that bicycle and motorcycle rims were on the list of controlled imports and were probably not available from, say, 1940 until January 1946 when they were removed from the list. I recall Malvern Star had to massively retool to keep bicycle production going during the war. Anyway, here are some extracts referring to imports of rims (and engines, hubs, and other unclassified parts) after the ban was lifted. 70 bundles of motorcycle wheel rims!

I wonder if the pause in Acme production between 1941 and 1947 was due to shortage of items like rims.

Leon

Offline 33d6

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Re: ACME aussie bike
« Reply #16 on: June 01, 2025, 07:14:11 AM »
As an aside that may explain the common problem of finding wheels for various projects. In my apprenticeship youth it was common to see various workshop mobile devices rolling around on motorcycle wheels. Oxy/acetylene sets spring to mind. Much easier to get a large wheeled set across a muddy plant park to the dozer you were working on than the usual indoor set with tiddly little cast iron things. It was traditional for the apprentice to get the muddy and clumsy jobs in the far end of the plant park. Particularly if it had been raining for the past few days.
We had a variety of odd carts with odd motorcycle wheel set ups. All for lugging various bits and bobs around and what’s the point of having an apprentice if he isn’t the one doing the pushing and pulling?
Now I know there wasn’t an alternative wheel source.