Tuesday Night

I've been busy with Honey-dos and work since Sunday. I've mixed up and poured half a ton of concrete, and taken down a couple of 6 inch trees and cut them up. At least I'm getting exercise, even if I'm not riding.

Bringheli did a great job of getting my tube to me, it arrived this morning along with two other sets I ordered from him. Yea! But, I decided to finish with braze-ons before installing the tube.

After careful checking, the placement of the cable stops (slotted variety) on the lower head-lug wasn't even enough. So, off they came. Second go 'round, they got pinned. Boy does that make things easy. The trick is how to get the nail out of the cable stop. Once the nails were out, I decided to taper the front edge of the stops with a half-round file. They look nice now, and a little different. We'll see how they work in practice.

Next came water-bottle bosses. A lot of people ask a lot of questions on the list about where to place them, jigs, etc. I must be missing something. 1) use the angle iron to scribe a center line. 2) measure location (175mm c-c from the BB, then 62mm c-c to the next boss) on an old bike. 3) mark the distances on the center line. 4) drill a 1/4" hole at the marks. 5) clean up flux & drop bosses in the holes. 6) braze and clean up. Afterwards, an old cage made a good test of the locations - seemed fine. What's difficult is drilling the lower hole (close to the BB) on each tube. There isn't really room for the drill. An AHA moment. Next time the holes will get drilled before seat tube is brazed to the BB. :)

Then it was time to tackle the front derailer braze-on. I've never used one before (even on a pre-manufactured bike), so this was all new territory. After studying some threads, it seems that when using a normal 2 speed campy derailer with a compact crank, it is recommend that it be higher than with a normal chain-ring. Apparently, some people like it absolutely higher than with a normal chainring, whereas others simply like more distance between it and the compact chainring. After studying the Campy diagrams and directions, I decided to install the braze in the normal position for a full size (52-53 tooth) chainring. There's room to drop the derailer a bit, and to raise it. So, we'll see what works best. despite measuring everything twice, and pinning the braze-on, when the derailer was mounted, it wouldn't align parallel to the BB face. Time for the Channel Locks. 2 tries and it was good. I may have to re-check one more time prior to paint, but it looks good.

I've been experimenting with a slightly carborizing flame, it doesn't seem to burn the flux so easily. Also, I'm doing neater work with the filler again. It's funny what a difference thickness makes in the process. I can't get the front lugs hot enough to accept the silver without really cooking the cablestop. I don't think that a smaller tip will do. The combined lug, headtube, and whatever cooling effect the down tube provides, net out to a need for big BTUs. However, I got good looking results this time with minimal spills - so I'm happy.

Tomorrow it will be on to the top tube. The frame must be to the painter by the 19th if I'm going to use it on the MS ride. That means, I have 5 days to install the top tube (after checking alignment one more time), install the rear triangle, put on the bridges, and build the fork. Probably, in a pinch, a different fork would do. But I want the big trail that Alex Singer designed. I have some pre-racked forks, and maybe could use a HJ crown with a 3 degree rake to achieve the effect. We'll have to see.

Until next time, ciao!