Making Progress Again

Tonight I cleaned out the end of the left chainstay and its DO, then checked out the fit and alignment one more time. It all looked good.

After disassembly, I put a ring of Fred Parr's new 56+t silver in the stay and then coated everything inside and out with his new flux. After clamping it all together, it took only a short while to see the silver weep out of the end of the stay. There's a 1mm gap from the shoulder of the DO to the end of the stay. So, after letting it all cool and re-fluxing, I used some of Freddy's new filet silver to fill the gap. That stuff is a little like magic. It softens up and starts to flow without losing its body. It's easy to move around with the torch. Cool!

After cooling and cleaning it was time to put a wheel in. It looks good both vertically horizontally. Very Cool! I think this is going to work.

Next I fluxed and pinned the top of the left seat stay. Again, I was using some of Freddy's new flux combining the black and the white. This time I was using up some Harris 56. It was working almost as well as Fred's filet silver. That is, I first flowed it through the joint, then backed off the heat to build up a little fillet between the stay and the seat lug. It was much easier than normal for me with the silver maintaining a viscosity that can be made sticker or looser depending on how you work the heat. It wasn't as quite good as the filet silver, but it was pretty darn good.

Now I'm psyched about doing some practice silver filet joints to send back to Freddy.

So, it's down to the stay cap, the chainstay and brake bridges, and general cleanup. I've spent about 4 times the effort on the rear triangle as the front - and there isn't even a critical miter anywhere in the backend. I'm going to have to have a better jig before starting my next frame.

Until next time.....toodles!