Got to work again!

It's Saturday! For most of you, that means the weekend and time off. With a career in Real Estate, Saturday's usually a work day for me. Lately, work has been 7 days a week - which is a good problem. Unusually, August has been a very active month. Well, things feel in place and all I had today was a two our stint of floor duty in the afternoon - so its a weekend day for me too!

Meanwhile, the family headed off to Pittsburgh for a ballgame. Some of you may be wondering why anyone would drive 8-10 hours to go watch the only AA franchise in the majors. Don't ask. :) Anyhow, I again have a weekend without family duties. So, that means I got to work on my stuff today. In the morning it was framebuilding and after floor I went for 3 hour ride. I'm not getting enough mileage lately - so that felt good.

What did I get done, you ask? Well, I mitered a chainstay bridge out of 0.5 inch tubing and drilled it out to accept a water bottle boss on the back side. The boss is to attach a fender. Again, I used the Schmidt method and was able to produce a filet that required only the slightest bit of additional silver from the outside - neat.

In fitting the chainstay bridge, I tried to position the boss to be the same distance from the rear wheel axle as where the bottom of the brake bridge would be. I've seen too many badly fit rear fenders and want to avoid that. Unfortunately, no-one seems to indicate the radius of their fenders, so it's hard to be sure the optimal positioning. But, it seems reasonable that the worst fitting problems can be avoided if both mounts are the same distance from the axle. Hope I'm right.

Then I took an old chainstay bridge (that was drilled beneath for a fender), and started to clean it up. Ugh!!!! I thought is just had rust, but it seems that it also had some form of thick grease or rust preventative (obviously not very effective). I soaked it in mineral spirits for about 20 minutes to loosen the grease up. This helped, but didn't do the whole job (maybe it should have been an overnight soak).

Then, I chucked the bridge (one end at a time) into the drill press and sanded it off. This seemed to get most of the rust and the remaining grease off. But there were some pits of rust. I tried the little bit of picklex that I have left, but it's worn out and didn't have much effect. So I resorted to hand sanding.

Then, I twisted a length of sanding tape into a twine-like diameter and proceeded to work on the inside. This all proceeded pretty well. Finally, I put a carbine tip in the rotary tool and got the inner ends real clean.

I found it especially difficult to miter the bridge. None of my files really seemed to match the diameter of the stay, but I got an acceptable fit. From here, it was time to Schmidt again. This time, while effective, I needed a little more build up on the outside due to the imperfect fit. In the end, it looks satisfactory and its level (which is a good trick without a jig or what not).

After cleaning things up, I temporarily installed the fork and mounted the wheels. Then I mounted the brakes. Yahoo!!! They fit the rims perfectly. So, that's great.

There's only a little left to do, although it'll take its share of time. Let's see:

• Mount the Columbine chain hanger. I better see if anyone can recommend the proper position for it.
• Install the crank and front derailer to insure that the derailer hanger is at the right height.
• Re-install the pump peg (the current position is sub-optimal).
• Sand and file.

OK, Tally Ho!