So I have just finished a frame repair of karmic love.


Short story- I moved back home 6 years ago and quickly fell back into the local bike club, reacquainting with old friends and finding new ones. One of these new ones (Brian, married to an old friend) had a frame that was made by the guy who taught me to build 38 years ago. I thought this was neat. As our riding and socializing continued I realized that this frame was the one I first touched with a file. In 1978 when I heard of this small new shop that was frame building I stopped in and the boss, Jeff Napier, handed me a lug (Prugnat S4) and a file and told me to clean up it's shore line. Soon enough I was working there and starting to build my first frame. Well Brian took this bike across the country on his Adventure Cycling tour guide stint last year and part way across the frame broke. he splinted it and made it across otherwise with no other problems. On his return home I offered to repair this frame for the cost of materials. I felt that this was the right thing to do, keep a bike on the road that I was connected to. Kind of a warranty repair even though I didn't do the actual building. Brian was happy to have me do this.


I finished this repair yesterday. I took a few shots of the process and posted a Flicker album with them and some text. .


https://www.flickr.com/photos/731955...57675525296815


The failure was in the down tube about 3" up from the shell. It cracked lengthwise for a couple of inches then at each end of that crack had begun to spread in two directions traveling around the tube at an angle, very odd in my experience. I decided to replace the front end of the bike but not completely remove the top tube and down tube from shell and seat lug sockets. They were silvered in place originally and I didn't want to risk their filler. So I left a stub of each tube and joined the new tubes with sleeves. I did a few other improvements and corrections along the way. Andy.