Wednesday, August 8, 2007

14 hr days

That's what I've done to get this bike ready in time. Note to self: never try to build a frame 1 week before a race. The main triangle brazed up nice and straight and I went to get the seatstays out of the box and instead of finding the manly mtb sized stays I thought I ordered, I got some wimpy looking roadbike stays. Damn! I should've checked them when I first got the parts. Now, of course, I have no time to order more. The fix? I cut the ultra skinny lowers off and added some thicker 4130 to the top. Now they match the rest of the bike better, plus the stays are stiffer for the brakes.
Here's the post braze ugly fluxiness of the rear triangle with the brake studs on. Brake studs and dropouts are brazed in with brass (stronger and cheaper) while the seatstay fillets are in 50n (lower temp than brass to keep the silver from melting out of the seatlug), can't tell in the pic, but that 50n makes some smooth fillets, not much to file on those!.

Seat lug after a soak, a wirebrushing, and an attack with the angle grinder.


It's 2am, do you know where your fork is? With everyone in the house asleep, I sneaked the fork into the kitchen for the de-fluxing. A couple of brazeons and a whole lot of finishing and it will be ready for paint. Man, I'm tired.



1 comment:

Sabrosa Cycles said...

Chauncey- you are nuts. I saw your post on the 6th about starting your leadville frame and I honestly wondered if you were building a frame for next year. 5 days is a speedy build. The frame is looking very nice, and I am digging the fork a lot. Strong work.