Checking In

Hey Gang!

Lot's going on.

Let's see. My personal steel frame is on the side for the moment - there's too much else going on.

I've begun in Earnest to build a bike for my seven year old daughter. It has Strawberry pressed head lugs which are designed for a "girls" bike with the top-tube nearly parallel to the down-tube. The bottom bracket is a Henry James w/o guides. I'll braze on a tubular guide for the rear, but their won't be a front derailler. The rear drop-outs are old campy forged horizontal (long slot). Tubing is generally True Temper Versus and Versus HT. The exception is that I have an old Columbus Metax stainless steel head tube. Hopefully I'll be able to polish this up nicely - but it's going to be a lot of work. The top tube will have a filet joint at the seat-tube, and there will two sets of seat stays. The second set of stays will mount the canti-brakes- allowing them a nice straight cable run. Wheels will be 406mm BMX rims on Shimano 105 hubs. With a nine speed rear-end, there will be no shortage gears - probably I should have obtained a narrower bloc as an 11-32 seems like overkill.

Right now, the keel is done - Head-tube, down-tube, seat-tube. The alignment looks good, although I had to adjust the seat tube post-pinning and pre-brazing. The top tube is fitted, I worked especially hard on getting really tight miters. The stays are rough fitted and It looks like the BB sockets are fully ground out. The latter is an issue because the 308mm chainstays and a 130mm axle, the stays really splay out. The chain-stay bridge (tubular) is very nearly done (just a little less length) so we're really making progress quickly.

Pictures soon.

Gordon has prep'd Carbon One and just about has the first set of masking done. He's making good time and I'm excited about seeing this bike finished soon. He's been great to work with. More details when its done!

I'm going to build a track frame for a neighbor. He's Cat 1/2Pro and should be able to give me good feedback as well as exposure at our local velodrome. I've been working on the design with Freddy Parr - and I think it's going to turn out nicely. I'm going to get a chance to stretch my silver filet joint technique. Fred's talking about using the new Reynolds Stainless - but we'll see. The neighbor wants a 1-1/8 fork, so I'll have to order a fork crown from Ceeway.

I spent the morning trying to find some iron horse-shoe nails for pinning. Not even close. There do seem to be some potential internet sources - but they're tough to find. So, I added this to my recent order from Fred (flux & silver needed restocking).

This week my Ceeway order came in. It includes two vintage sets of SLX (complete 11 tube sets). Along with this are lugs and BB's to fit, and two sets of internal cable routing parts). I also recently received six sets of Campy old-style rear horizontal drop-outs (like on Sarah's bike), from Richard Sachs. This complements the Sach's dropouts I recently purchased.

So, along with finishing my frame, and building one for my son, I've got my hands full. It feels good.

That's it. More soon.