This past week I had a fork making project in my shop. There were 5 of us doing various tasks.


Organizing our tasks and spending plenty of time just chatting - sometimes about making frames

Before Covid my friend Tim (a physical therapist) went to Bucha Ukraine and made 50 transportation frames with Yuriy. We have been providing bicycles to care givers in Ukraine since 2000. The war put an end to making the forks in Ukraine to match the frames. Now we are catching up in the US. One of our goals was/is to spend as much money as we raise as possible in Ukraine. The laser cutting company in Ukraine that makes my frame fixtures also made us twin plate fork crowns and front dropouts with stainless plates. They made little crosses to put on the top of the crowns that in my imagination might deter a thief a few seconds before stealing it.

The fork pieces laid out on the alignment table. The dropouts are 5mm thick and the SS plates 1mm. The crosses are 2mm thick. The sleeve to space the plates has a wall thickness of .058"

Another goal was to pass on any additional frame knowledge I have to possibly improve my colleagues' skills. All of us will continue to learn if we want to until we die.

I discovered a few years ago that brazing twin plates so they are not twisted on each other and perpendicular to the steerer is a challenge. One of my students helped me design a tool to hold the plates, sleeve, crown race to the steerer so they could be spotted together.

Everything put together so the plates can be spotted to the crown


The tool disassembled so you can see all the parts


The guys will take them back to their shop and braze in the dropouts and the cross decorations

Tony at Framebuilders Supply provided us with some of the crown races we needed. Andy was wearing the appropriate T shirt for work that day.


Andy was checking and adjusting alignment for each fork after the crown parts were brazed

I certainly had a great time while there. Doug schooled me on my silver brazing technique, always a good thing to have a pro give you advice. The fork construction is simple but "involved" shall I say. A big challenge is to keep the crown plated parallel and when the blades are inserted later their holes line up well enough. The jig Doug shows is one of two in the world. One of my tasks on returning home is to make another jig to be able to share with Adam and others who will build with this crown design. Today I turned the cone on the all thread shaft.

This is the second time I met Adam. We were part of the early interweb frame making thing back in the late 1990s and spent a little time while at a builder's show before his world changed significantly. He's recently reentered frame building and came with a super nice uber light frame for paint work. It was nice to spend time with a smart guy.

The bad part was not getting as much done while there as we had hoped and when leaving I forgot to pack 4 of the waiting for dropouts in process forks. But that's what the winter and UPS are for. Andy.