You can't tell me....

.......that this frame isn't coming together nicely. This is Scott's (dirt) road bike- it will run drop bars and have clearance for true mtb size tires. Scott asked for a curved TT and a wishbone seatstay arrangement, so how could I do all that and not curve the seatstays too? The seatstays are just sitting in place and haven't been cut to length yet, in case you were wondering.
Here's a shot of the fork crown and the wishbone. Cool how they match, huh? I have to thank Sabrosa Cycles for the inspiration for that setup.
Oops! I just looked a little closer at the pic and, no, I'm not flipping you off. The forks legs aren't brazed in yet so I was bracing against the other leg so the crown would stay at the right angle. Sorry about that!

Naked Curves

A few of the recents builds in their various stages...rockin full on Coconino style, huh? The first one on the table is Jeff's "all done except for some polishing" GDR racer. Frames like this are a lot of fabrication work, but oh so much fun. If you count all the individual pieces of the handmade cable guides, this frame had 28 braze ons!
Here we have Scott's bike in the jig being prepped for chainstays and my own 30's stlye 29er frame getting fitted for top tubes.
Yeah, I know, I have a tiny little shop full of random junk. There's just enough room for me and my dog when I'm working in there.


Late breaking news: I hand filed both the chainstays for Scott's bike at the same time and they came out perfect the first time. No adjustments needed. I came up with a little trick that I'll post about if I can repeat that result on the next frame.

....and they said it couldn't be done.

Well, I was in a bit of a quandry over the top tube on Scott's bike. You see, the design called for a single curved TT, but it really needed to be an 1.25" tube for stiffness and aesthetics. Problem? bending a tube that big in my normal fashion ends up in a kinked tube. I tried to find an alternate source (another builder), but he was too busy to make them for others. I looked at muffler and chopper shops, but they were scared to try or had no clue in how to do it. I didn't really want to do the cerrobend thing (metal that melts at a low temp) too many noxious ingredients to that stuff and who wants to die for a top tube?
Finally, I went back to square one to try again. I made a new mandrel, packed in sand extra tight, and viola! A perfect bend! I realized that if if move the tube in the mandrel after the first kink starts, the tube is supported a lot better and the bend is finished nicely. The only issue with this is that you have to sacrifice the first 8-10" of tube for scrap. For that reason, I recommend starting with a 5' tube so your leftover section will be more useful- I used a 4' section and the remainder was too short to make another top tube. Bend and learn!

Ain't Dead Yet!

Just got an email that asked if I was dead or otherwise incapacitated....guess I've been neglecting the bog, huh? Same old story, the eternal struggle for free time. Between the family, the day job, and riding there's not much left over for the shop and the computer. But when it comes down to a choice between framebuilding and web surfing, the torch wins everytime!
Fortunately, the weather is getting much better, the days are longer, and summer is almost here- many updates are coming.
In the meantime, here's Joe's bike back from powdercoat:

Back on line.....finally!

Hi all,

Well, the ol' computer decided to self destruct around Christmas (an e-bay induced meltdown?) and I lost a whole series of build pics for this frame and a fork blade bender in the process. I hate modern technology- gimmie my files and a torch anyday, they never let me down.

So back on the net means I can at least post up the latest frame- it's Joe's single speed cross bike.

It's a sweet Prestige OS tubeset (the last one I could find), 7/4/7 and 8/5/8 walls, hand bent s-bend seatstays, lugged fork, custom ss bridge in the Coconino style, and big time tire clearance. Yahoo for work that doesn't require software!

"Talk" to you soon!

And I would ride 5000 miles.....................

Wow, it's almost been a month since my last post...time is flying this time of year. I have three frames in the works right now and should have something to show this weekend. In the meantime, a bit of a Live Wire Cycles milestone was reached a few weeks ago- Jeff Kerby took his Live Wire 29er past the 5,000 mile mark, in less than 6 months! That's pretty impressive for any cyclist, but consider that 95% of the miles were off road, the bike was always loaded down with some kind of cargo, and it's a single speed. He's been throwing down 300 mile weeks lately as prep for the next GDR too!
It's pretty cool to see a Live Wire bike getting thrashed on a daily basis and keep coming back for more.



ps- I shouldn't have written the post title like that, I can't get that song out of my head now....damn those geeky Australian twins. And why would anybody want to get "heavered" to?

At the feet of the master......

A couple weeks ago, I took a weekend trip to Flagstaff for some framebuilding fun at Coconino Cycles to hang out with Steve Garro and to watch the master at work. It was a great time! From a surreal 11pm visit from a horde of drunken cyclists (yo Big Johnny!), to trying to hang with Denise on the trail, to running the mill and using the Anvil fixtures- this was my kinda vacation!

I can't believe how much that short trip added to my building knowledge. Thanks Steve for the hospitality, the tubes, and most of all, the salsa!

Here's Steve perfecting the dt miter on a super burly bike that's going to be ridden across Mongolia! Mongolia!

Gotta love the curved tubes, eh?

Tacking it up.

Speaking of curves, here's a frame I brought to work on (it's gonna be Jeff's GDR Racer.2) as it sat in the HJ getting the chainstays fitted up. See? even though I haven't been posting, I've been building!