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First off, to the folks who do this every day, all day, respect. I spent last Sunday in the shop putting flame to steel and filler and after about 7 hours, I was exhausted. Mentally and physically.
I started by getting mitered tubes into the jig to make sure tubes fit together as expected. Once that was done, I went at it with focus and fury. https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4663/...9594956c_c.jpg I was too focused to take many pictures in between. I can say there was some mitering that happened: https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4605/...8926ccdb_c.jpg Some brazing : https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4649/...22a2bea7_c.jpg https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4755/...5063253d_c.jpg The fourth didn't make in the picture as I didn't think I would get it finished but then my 4pm appointment was cancelled so, I dove back in and finished it as well. https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4629/...30baa0c5_c.jpg About 7 hours later, I ended up with: https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4697/...1626deed_c.jpg After cleaning up, I went to dinner and had a beer. |
Nice work. I love having a long day (or two) to put completely into building. My initial immersion was a 3-day intensive workshop with Dave Levy of TiCycles Fabrication, what ended up to be almost 12 hour days. They kicked me out at the end of day 3. In the off hours I went back to my hotel and built wheels...
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Checking back in. Over the past 2 weeks, I spent a week in California for work so, today was my first day where I was able to spend much time in the shop.
Not really related to this project, I experimented with Phosphoric Acid to clean off surface rust after soaking the flux off. I had a conversation with another builder who gave me some tips on how to use phosphoric acid to get rid of rust during the building process so that was a good jump forward in making it nicer to work with a partially built frame or fork. Also not really related, I have been following threads on propane/oxygen concentrators and have been patiently waiting for a concentrator to show up on Craigslist. An estate auction house listed something and I won the bid at $52! I brought it home and plumbed it into my OA set up to test it and it works wonderfully. I ordered up an elbow and TEN-5 tip to go on my Victor 100 torch. I also ordered arresters and propane regulator. I estimate that I'm into the set up for around $200 not including the torch handle and hoses. I will be using propane/Oxygen with the big torch/tip for crowns, lugs, and plug dropouts. Fillets, I think, will be better with A/O and smaller tip. I'm amazed at how well the propane set up works. I don't know if it's the bigger tip (previously, my biggest tip with O/A was a Victor #3) or propane heating properties but, the following CS joints were a breeze! I also did some testing flowing brass into a sleeve an immediately had my best results yet. I was able to flow brass about 40mm down a .058" walled sleeve without any burning or external flowing of brass. Again, it could just be that a bigger tip makes the difference. My Acetylene tank is too small to drive anything bigger than a #3. On to recent progress! I have decided to do the fillet finish work to fill in short time spots in the shop. I'm realizing there is a lot of finish work to do! Top tube is done, downtube needs work: https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4613/...522ac71a_c.jpg Seat cluster/top tube: https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4602/...f927e9d5_c.jpg Aligning the rear end with a known good wheel. https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4617/...8cd56dec_c.jpg I got them all tacked and aligned, brazed and chased: https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4757/...f11ddc1e_c.jpg https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4767/...a3002295_c.jpg Then I put a dummy headset in and some wheels to see where I was. https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4622/...2567dafb_c.jpg Then I started working on the seatstays: https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4701/...af06d858_c.jpg The cut stays, with pre-forms for brazing. Need to clean them up and they are ready to go. https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4758/...607126dc_c.jpg Three day weekend. Might have them done by Tuesday! |
More heat definitely makes flowing brass into a sleeve a lot easier.
Bikes are looking nice, good job |
Where and how do you position the preformed rings? Do you heat with the fork pointing up or down? Was the # 3 tip you used for OA a Victor tip(.059 orifice)?
thanks, Brian |
Originally Posted by calstar
(Post 20174571)
Where and how do you position the preformed rings?
Originally Posted by calstar
(Post 20174571)
Do you heat with the fork pointing up or down?
Originally Posted by calstar
(Post 20174571)
Was the # 3 tip you used for OA a Victor tip(.059 orifice)?
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Originally Posted by unterhausen
(Post 20174288)
More heat definitely makes flowing brass into a sleeve a lot easier.
Bikes are looking nice, good job I was worried the tire would hit the seattube when fully forward. As you can see, full forward, there is about 3mm of clearance. |
I was able to find some time in garage yesterday afternoon.
I reamed and faced headtubes: https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4620/...962be6bf_c.jpg After I ream the headtube, I hone it with one of those flex hone things so all the rough edges are smoothed. Here I am doing some mock up work on the chainstays: This is with about 3mm of clearance between the tire and arch when the wheel is fully forward in the slots. Not a lot of room for the stub to go on that yoke! https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4716/...8d4d84e0_c.jpg I brazed on the first stub using the preform that Andy sent with the yokes (foreground) but felt there wasn't quite enough filler so, I fed in a bit more manually. Then I made new preforms with a few wraps (background). I'm sure Andy has seen enough of these to know there is enough filler in there with one wrap but, I just feel a bit better having some seep out of the joint. https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4659/...ca05e968_c.jpg Also, as promised, Here's how I do the preforms: First, I bevel the top edge of the plug: https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4628/...d4f7bf2f_c.jpg Then after wire brushing the surface to be brazed, I wipe with alcohol and apply flux: https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4632/...0673a718_c.jpg Clean the inside of the tube, wipe with alcohol and insert the preform https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4769/...bb02f92c_c.jpg Add flux: https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4743/...5ee48a52_c.jpg Use the plug to push the preform into the tube: https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4721/...3789f934_c.jpg Add more flux: https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4654/...0f90d591_c.jpg Apply heat: https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4723/...fbd42b35_c.jpg At this point, there is only completing seatstays and putting them on and slotting the seattube. Then I will build each one up and take it for a quick spin before tearing down, doing a final inspection and then sending off to paint. Hoping to have them all done by end of February. |
After all of the above, I brazed on the number badges. I don't have great photo of that but, while they were out soaking in the tank, it got very cold (low 20s)! I put the frames in the tank around 6pm and by 10pm ice was forming around them - you can see it stuck to the tubes in this pic.
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4676/...aaf0dba1_c.jpg |
I want one!
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Originally Posted by davei1980
(Post 20185365)
I want one!
These are probably too small (unless you're pre-teenager). Meet up on Snoqualmie Pass to discuss? |
1 Attachment(s)
Originally Posted by duanedr
(Post 20185875)
:thumb:
These are probably too small (unless you're pre-teenager). Meet up on Snoqualmie Pass to discuss? |
Originally Posted by davei1980
(Post 20186674)
the velodrome in Redmond!!!!
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Originally Posted by duanedr
(Post 20187888)
That's where these bikes are going! They have a great Jr program that they are trying to grow.
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Originally Posted by davei1980
(Post 20188282)
That’s so awesome! I live in Spokane but I havr a cousin over there who races track. Would love to try it.
They have different nights of racing for new riders and intermediate racers. Then the fast folks come out on Friday nights where you'll usually see a few national and world champ jerseys flying around. There's a beer garden, the track is surrounded by grass so, lots of folks bring picnic style dinners and it is really a lot of fun. Especially on a nice summer Friday night here. They usually have a 'Kiddie Kilo' where kids get to do a couple laps on their own bikes. Ever see a 4 year old kid, riding his bike with training wheels on a banked velodrome? |
Originally Posted by duanedr
(Post 20190506)
It is a lot of fun. It's like a 3 hour road race all crammed into 5 minutes. Very intense. The Jerry Baker velodrome does a great job getting new racers up and going. From Spokane it would be a bit of a trek to get to the training classes they put on for new racers (3 or 4 Tuesday nights in a row) and then the new racers have to do like 4 Thursday night 'practice races' before they can move up to Monday night real racing for Cat 4/5's. It's a bit of a time investment to race.
They have different nights of racing for new riders and intermediate racers. Then the fast folks come out on Friday nights where you'll usually see a few national and world champ jerseys flying around. There's a beer garden, the track is surrounded by grass so, lots of folks bring picnic style dinners and it is really a lot of fun. Especially on a nice summer Friday night here. They usually have a 'Kiddie Kilo' where kids get to do a couple laps on their own bikes. Ever see a 4 year old kid, riding his bike with training wheels on a banked velodrome? You're right, I think Redmond is a TAD too far to trapes just to get my racing fix in. I am thinking about starting single speed CX this fall, I just emailed the organizers today. They had 6 races in Walla Walla, Pullman, Moscow, Spokane and Mead. Dang... to think I used to work JUST off 520 in Bellevue; but I wasn't in to cycling then. |
Wonderful work! Thank you for sharing.
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Wow, it's been almost a month! Time flies when you have kids!
Over the past 3 weeks, I have added seatstays, slotted seattubes, reamed and faced various parts as well as polished the skin off my thumb several times! When we last were together, I had just brazed the stub to the top of the wishbone and paired the legs up. https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4671/...c2fae086_c.jpg After that, I brazed the legs onto the wishbone to create a single seatstay unit: https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4706/...cf613fac_c.jpg Once this was done, I did several measurements to ensure the legs were in the same plane and symmetrical. This was highly focused work and there are no pictures. The next step was mitering the wishbone/seattube junction. I started down the path of using a fixure I created for exactly this purpose but, because the stub is so short, I decided that I would simply miter by hand. I cut the angle, and went at it with a file. Because I was very careful about cutting the seatstays equal length, I was able to simply drop them onto the dropout stubs and worry about the top miter. I thought. It turns out to not be that simple. The first one took more than 2 hours to get where I wanted. The next one took 20 minutes and each following one took a couple minutes less. Eventually, I was happy with their fitment and fired up the torch. I used Fillet Pro for the wishbone to ST joint as I had used silver for the sleeve. I used brass preforms for each of the other joints in the seatstays. https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4703/...2cdb9828_c.jpg https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4793/...9b1ff82c_c.jpg https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4668/...f45f739d_c.jpg Then there was a week and a half of finish work like sanding, polishing, slotting and such. Every time I looked at one, I saw something I wasn't satisfied with. I swear, I could spend another 3 months doing the finish work and still would find little imperfections! https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4771/...870da9a4_c.jpg The full squad, out on the patio! https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4656/...83b44ce5_c.jpg Test build - The cranks are some old road cranks and the bar/stem are from my track bike. The stem the bike was designed around is 70mm long so the bars are quite a ways out there on this test build. https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4694/...808ba74f_c.jpg Finally, I sent my test pilot out for a spin. His first time riding fixed gear, 700c wheels and drop bars. He said it was fine but he didn't like the bars. : https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4796/...dc2700a3_c.jpg Next steps: Components came in from FSA/Vision ( Vision ) today. I will pick them up tomorrow to do a dry install just to make sure everything fits together. Then it's off to Seattle Powder Coating https://www.facebook.com/pages/Seattle-Powder-Coat/103037239763205 for a really nice deep 2 part metallic blue. I have to still order decals as well (with new design!). I'll post more photo's when they come back from coating. Aside: Now that the building part is done, I'm feeling a bit of withdrawal and find myself dreaming of my next project. The kids always need new bikes so, I think it's going to be a really light road bike for my test pilot so he can join me as I start riding again. I do have a commission from a former racing team mate who would like something special. She's about 5'0" tall (with cleats on) and about 98lbs so, that could be fun. I also want to make myself a 24" or 26" BMX cruiser sort of thing. Maybe even have it chrome plated - for old times sake. I have a super sweet old school ESP BMX stem that is just itching for a bike and that would take me back to my roots... https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?f...20667074582243 Thanks for following along! |
Looking forward to seeing the finished bikes.
regards, Brian |
I received in most of the components from FSA/Vision. Super folks to work with and nice gear! However, after test installing a crankset, I determined the clearances were too tight. There is about 1mm at the chainring and 2 at the crankarm. I'm now in scramble mode to make a dimpler to dimple at both the chainring and crank arm locations on the outer side of the chainstays. I'm glad I was able to test before sending to the coater!
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4785/...be2258df_c.jpg My workback schedule to have them ready by 4/15/2018 is to have them to the powder coater by 3/28/2018. Stay tuned! |
I bought these Milwaukee locking pliers to make a dimpler from. They are really amazing, I think I'm going to have to buy another pair for the dimpler, because these things have been too useful in the toolbox
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I picked these up at Hardwicks yesterday. They look almost made for dimpling. They will need a bit of work but should accomplish the goal with some tweaks.
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4781/...2773652d_c.jpg |
This past weekend was filled with finishing touches including dimpling the chainstay for chainring clearance, fillet smoothing, fork tip shaping and filling a few pin holes with silver.
My dimpler in action: It was pretty fiddly but, once I inserted a small piece of rod in the inner dimple and a sleeve of half round from an old chainstay, it worked pretty well: https://farm1.staticflickr.com/789/4...ba298bcf_c.jpg The results: https://farm1.staticflickr.com/869/4...5410d840_c.jpg https://farm1.staticflickr.com/805/4...780084df_c.jpg I like filing fork tips to a point to make front wheel installs easier/faster: https://farm1.staticflickr.com/821/4...451e0b57_c.jpg https://farm1.staticflickr.com/863/4...c7340ee8_c.jpg Tomorrow, I will drop these off at the powder coater. Then I should have 2 weeks to get decals printed and the rest of the build kits received. The final step will be building these things up! I'm stoked to finish this up. |
looking good. Do you know what those locking pliers were intended to do?
Since the pliers I posted have curved jaws, I can use the same technique as you did. A tube on the backside and a rod on the front. |
Originally Posted by unterhausen
(Post 20250347)
looking good. Do you know what those locking pliers were intended to do?
Since the pliers I posted have curved jaws, I can use the same technique as you did. A tube on the backside and a rod on the front. I thought these would be almost usable right out of the package. Unfortunately, I had to do some grinding and such so, yes, what you have would work as well or better. |
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that's exciting.
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Originally Posted by unterhausen
(Post 20268216)
that's exciting.
Next steps are:
I've learned a ton through this process. I'm excited to see my bikes out racing around the velodrome making kids happy and excited to continue refining my product and process. I'm still struggling to get the seatstays on without affecting rear end alignment. Generally, when I'm using slotted dropouts it's not a big deal because I have files and know how to use them. With the through axles we don't have that fudge room. When I put it on the table after adding the seatstays, I sometimes see the dropouts have moved 5-10 thou which then puts the wheel out by 15-30 thou at the rim. This is too much for my liking. I have ridden frames this far out and they rode fine but, if someone put it on a table I would feel bad. I took the opportunity to create a more professional looking logo with the help of a friend who is a graphic designer. I mean, there has to be a decal on it somewhere so... https://farm1.staticflickr.com/881/3...1548aaff_b.jpg https://farm1.staticflickr.com/820/2...36eb3c76e6.jpg These bikes will get the shorter ones. I like the longer ones and couldn't decide so I saved both. I've only printed the short ones at this point. It would be interesting to hear what the pros do in this area. Some have ability to print masks for each individual frame and it's part of the paint but, others have very consistent decal sets. Alright, I have to pay some bills... |
Excellent thread! Thank you so much.
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powder and decals is a bit tricky. There are some decals for powder. Sometimes people shoot clear coat over the decals and powder. Others have a contrasting color powdercoated, put vinyl masks on, shoot the top coat of powder, do a partial cure, weed the masks and then do a full cure. That sounds expensive.
Masks can be done with a cheap vinyl cutter or farmed out to a sign making shop. I am not particularly happy with the local powder coat company, so my next frame will probably be wet paint. Thinking of getting decals from Velocal. I thought about getting a painter to use masks, but either way I have to get the artwork done. If it only would warm up enough to shoot paint. Actually is probably warm enough today, but I'm nowhere near ready. |
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