Gravy and Fame

A little interim lag in the build process and as we decided to do a stainless head badge on John's bike and I took my first steps towards fame. Fame? I'll get to that in a minute.

First, the bike:

Naked frame all prepped for paint w/the badge masked off.

Sitting in the "hot box" getting the paint cured after two coats of slate grey Imron.

This last pic does a good job of showing the color and the lug shorelines....nice and sharp! I love shooting metallic colors lke this- the paint looks like it's alive and moving when it first goes down. Well, I guess you had to be there to see what I mean, bur trust me, it's a cool effect.

I stupidly forgot to get any pictures, but I took my first step towards fame this week when I was interviewed by the local Channel 7 news for their "Made in New Mexico" segment. It was pretty weird having a camera man and a news anchor follow me around the shop asking questions about framebuilding, but I guess all of us famous folk have to get used to that, huh? ;)

It's supposed to air in October so I'll have to post up a link then. Of course, I might be so famous by that time that I'll have to have my people do the blog post for me........

Waiting for the gravy

John's bike getting the final touches as I wait to get a full day to devote to painting: This is a brake bridge, regular, boring, and the same as every other bike out there.



How's about this bridge? I took a couple of stock factory bridges, and here's what I came up with after a bit of bending, brazing, and filing. I figured that because this bridge might never actually have a brake on it, it needed to look cool by itself. It will also double as a fender mount after I drill and tap a couple of holes in it.
You can also se the upper rack mounts in this shot.
Head shot. The surface rusting you see will all be gone in a phosphoric acid wash prior to the primer coat. Not only does the wash clean all the rust inside and out, it "etches" the metal and makes the primer adhere better.

A nice and off center full frame shot. Someday I'll learn to take a good picture....someday.

Chef says.............

"Your fork is done!"

Can you tell Halloween comes early at our house?

B.T.O.

Been busy with the day job and building frames at night so I've missed a few blog days! Good progress has been made though, John's frame is starting to resemble a Bicycle Type Object! A little extra miter work here: double compound miters on the seat tube and down tube. Why? No good reason other than it looks neat inside the BB shell. A lot of folks will just put the extra cut in the seat tube, and that's fine, it just won't look as cool later. Although, the only people who will ever see it are me and Jogn, but still.........
Seat tube brazed in here and getting one of the 40-50 alignment checks a frame gets through the build process. Nice and square here!
View from inside the BB after the downtube is brazed in- it's the little things......
Top tube mitered and fitted. I like to be able to rotate the frame for this braze, so the frame is clamped in a workstand that allows me to turn it whichever way I need.
A trip to the Morroni jig to get the chainstays fitted up. I love this huge chuck of machined steel, there's only one other jig like this in use today. But I do know where another one is sitting and can be had for a song!

Starting the front triangle

Here's how I like to start the front triangle, the down tube to head tube connection. All the frame's geometry follows this angle, so it's important to get it right. A perfect fit, with no gaps in the miter is essential for maximum strength and alignment. For this frame, the angle has to be 58.5, a typical angle for a smallish frame and only half a degree off from the angle of the lug- just a tiny bit of tweaking and it will all go together perfectly. A light-tight fit done with only a hacksaw and a file.
All brazed up! It looks like hell with the flux still on it, but trust me, it's a nice braze!

Lining up the angle with the blue print- spot on! If it were off, I'd have to cold set it (read: bend) something I absolutely hate to do and something I haven't had to do since my first frame. If the miter is right and the proper brazing sequence is followed, it will be right every time.

You can also see the water bottle bosses have been brazed in too- this is another one of the little things you do to before the frame is together, it makes it easier to maintain alignment later on. Building frames comes down to the millimeter, so every little bit helps!

Saturday night blog down.....

Time to personalize this a bit before the big brazing is underway: Drawn on.
Drilled out.
Excess cut away- only broke two blades!
Approximately 3,476 file strokes later and the Dark Knight approves!

Subs

Getting the seat stays, chain stays, and fork blades sorted. The seatstays will have the traditional caps- made from scratch to give it the custom flair. Because, as you must know, every custom has to have the required amount of flair.

Here you see the initial cut out. It kinda makes the stay look like a big hypodermic needle, huh? A blurry pic of a scrap piece of seat stay brazed in place. I like to use this diameter because it gives the cap a more scalloped look.Excess tube cut away and a bit of file work later......and we have our cap!

Got to working and left the camera in the house for the chain stays and blades. Blades have been raked to 50mm, with a nice curve to them.

Also, you can see I've used two types of dropouts. The fronts are the plug-in type and the rears are attached by cutting a slot in the stay and then filling the gaps with brass. One thing I don't like is drops that don't match between the front and back, so I spent quite a bit of time blending in the rears to balance with the front. Once painted, thy will look like a matching set.

Next is lug prep, miters, and some real working shots of the greatest frame jig ever.