More little bits

I've been concerned about rear-end alignment because of some shifting problems. A full check-out of alignment on Saturday indicated that nothing was wrong. As a consequence my next suspicion is the alignment of the derailer tab. After checking out the pricing of derailer alignment tools - I'm going to try to make up my own tool from some angle steel.

Saturday was also a day to do some polishing on the fork tip faces for the new fork. I think it's going to look good. There will be some mini cigar bands around the legs about half way down.

This morning I got out for an early morning ride. Janet warned me that I was too warmly dressed. She based this on her run. I don't always remember that she doesn't deal with wind-chill - this morning was a good example. It would have been nice to wear my full finger gloves. :)

Last night and tonight I've tried to make a front rack. Mondays effort was just bad. I tried to bend the main rectangle from a single piece of tubing (3/8" stainless). Similarly I tried to make the fork-leg stays from a single piece. I'm not good enough with the bender to get everything square and equal.

Tonight was time for a different approach. The main rectangle has three sides which can be squared and adjusted after bending. Then, there's a second piece of tubing brazed on to close off the open end of the loop. That went well. So it was on to mitering the ends of a cross piece for the center of the rectangle. That fit in nicely and easily brazed up. From there it was time for the fork-leg stays. This time, I went with two separate "hockey-sticks." The ends were squeezed flat in the vice, then a 1/4" hole was drilled into the flat, and then the end of the flat was rounded off with the grinding wheel so that there would be no binding as the stay was rotated around its fixing screw.

After fluxing everything up, I screwed the stays to their eyelets on the fork. Then clamped the rectangle to the foot on the end of the hockey sticks. At this point, all looked well. After tacking the stays to the rectangle, the clamps came off and the rack was removed from the fork. As I went to finish brazing one stay, it heated up again to shift slightly. This doesn't affect fit, but it looks a little bogus. So, I think I'll have to take it off and try again, even though I don't want to put too much heat on the stainless steel. ERGH!!!

The tubing is small enough that it heats quickly. Generally, I haven't had a problem with overheating, but I've also been using a small flame. Thought all this I've been using some of Freddy's flux (mixing a little of the dark Boron-added to his White silver flux) - this stuff is doing a great job. His 45% silver acts like a fileting mix when warmed up, but the flows great when its hot. This makes it easy to put a dab on in one spot for tacking, and then to pull it through to the other side to get a good bond. I've been finishing the brazes using Freddy's filet mix - it's easy to get a nice smooth chinking between the two parallel tubes. I love his brazing materials.

There's a bit more work to do before there are any more pictures. Hopefully that won't take too long.

Oh, and the rest of my new decals arrived. AJ does a great job - they look nice.