Originally Posted by
Jarpmann
thanks guys for all the very helpful responses. lots of good info here. two setup's yielded very similar measurements, so i feel pretty good about the measurements. i chucked up the BB in a lathe prior to welding, and the faces should have been very close to parallel. not the best practice but i cant really afford a BB facer at this point. i suppose that i could use a bike shop after the fact.
Can you all offer some incite into which tubes you tack in first? when do you complete weld a joint, and when do you measure?
Thanks
If you faced the BB before welding the chances of the faces being anywhere close to parallel after welding are very low. The welding distortion will see to that.
Do you have some good calipers that you can measure the width of the BB shell with? If so do it in 4 places around the shell and see what you get. If it's more than a few thou off then your alignment will suffer in a rather large way.
All the best,
dave