Its a rainy weekend. I only got in one ride, and it was damp. Thankfully I have fenders which keeps me a lot more comfortable than everyone else. Beyond rain, we had winds and low temps, so it wasn't the most pleasant weather. I know my hands are getting cold when I can't feel the shifters - such was this weather even with winter gloves.
The crown of Sarah's fork is now cleaned up and looks pretty good. I got her tips in last night and they're waiting for cleanup. They warrant some additional comment.
I rolled little spools of filler and set them up into the fork legs with the flux. Then the fluxed tips were pushed in behind them. Somehow, one coil seemed to get lost. I heated one tip and the filler came out around the tip nicely over 360 degrees. The other once didn't seem to have any filler flow out. So, I tipped the fork over, and added a little filler to the first tip so that it could be filed with a nice smooth transition into the fork leg. The other tip sucked up a ton of filler before its edge could be filled. Obviously the filler ring was lost.
Sure enough, when I went to soak flux, the loose ring was rattling around inside the leg. I'm going to have to do something to stop that - probably locate it in the leg and heat that spot so it bonds to the leg.
I've also started fitting seat stays. This first is fit and now needs to be mounted. The second may get done tonight - the tops of both dropouts are modified to handle the angle of the stays, the stainless pieces are cut out, so there's not too much left to do on them.
Finally, this has been a weekend to update and fix links on the blog. My MS150 donation link still doesn't work - hopefully the techies will get back to me soon. But the rest are good and there's a new one too! I've added EBykr, and its not because he has a link to me. EBykr is like an online magazine of road-bike history, and one with high production values to boot. His pictures and prose are top rate! Recommended. So, hop the link and take a peek.
Sunday, April 30, 2006
Monday, April 24, 2006
Time slows down.
There's much to do yet, although mostly small things, to get Sarah's bike ready for paint. Today was step two of the fork. Again, this crown just soaks up heat like no tomorrow - must be pretty strong. Anyhow, the fork legs are in and look to be well aligned. There's a lot of cleanup. I tried a different flux and it just doesn't come off as well. The crown needs a lot of cleanup, then the tips will be installed.
Mostly, tonight was clean-up work on the frame. This is from where all the small tasks come. The other day I added to the filet on the brake cable tunnel and the one side of the brake bridge. While things were looking much better, they both still needed some filing and sanding to be right. I also went back around the various lug edges one more time, and spent some time feathering the points of a couple of lugs. Then there was general all-over sanding and filing on the drop-out faces.
All of this sounds quick enough, but it goes best when I get lost in time. Impatience is the enemy of fine work. I don't know that my work yet qualifies as fine, but its getting closer every day. I've learned to walk away if I'm feeling impatient - which is a good trick. But better yet is learning to relax and just go with the process. I don't usually work an area to completion in one stage. Instead I seem to work around and around the frame doing a bit at a time on each spot that needs finishing. This seems to work fine, because each time a spot is left and returned to, it gets a fresh eye with a new vantage point. This, in my experience, is a good way to make sure that the cure doesn't accidentally create another problem.
Sarah's bike is especially nice for this because it is so small. I can hold it and envelop it sitting down, without a vice, or putting it in a jig. As I turn it to reach another spot, I readjust my position and am able to wedge it comfortably enough to work a file or scrape the edge of a lug. Its very satisfying and when dinner is announced, I'm disappointed. Not because I haven't finished, but because I have to stop.
Mostly, tonight was clean-up work on the frame. This is from where all the small tasks come. The other day I added to the filet on the brake cable tunnel and the one side of the brake bridge. While things were looking much better, they both still needed some filing and sanding to be right. I also went back around the various lug edges one more time, and spent some time feathering the points of a couple of lugs. Then there was general all-over sanding and filing on the drop-out faces.
All of this sounds quick enough, but it goes best when I get lost in time. Impatience is the enemy of fine work. I don't know that my work yet qualifies as fine, but its getting closer every day. I've learned to walk away if I'm feeling impatient - which is a good trick. But better yet is learning to relax and just go with the process. I don't usually work an area to completion in one stage. Instead I seem to work around and around the frame doing a bit at a time on each spot that needs finishing. This seems to work fine, because each time a spot is left and returned to, it gets a fresh eye with a new vantage point. This, in my experience, is a good way to make sure that the cure doesn't accidentally create another problem.
Sarah's bike is especially nice for this because it is so small. I can hold it and envelop it sitting down, without a vice, or putting it in a jig. As I turn it to reach another spot, I readjust my position and am able to wedge it comfortably enough to work a file or scrape the edge of a lug. Its very satisfying and when dinner is announced, I'm disappointed. Not because I haven't finished, but because I have to stop.
Sunday, April 23, 2006
A little more progress
Today was a big day for hits on the web site, looks like folks were interested to see Carbon 1. That said, there have been no comments so maybe they didn't like the paint scheme. It's designed to appeal to a large local club, which limits what can be done in terms of colors and such. Anyway, I like it.
Sundays are a day of work for me, so bike building had to wait until after the kids got to bed.
The task for tonight was to begin Sarah's fork. The crown is an Long Shen LC-27. It's a sloping crown with external tangs and a triangular cutout on the outside tang. The shape is really nice (unless you hate sloping crowns) and it has the rake built in.
The built in rake is important as it seemed like these legs would be hard to bend. They had to be trimmed from both the bottom and top. On the bottom, Joe B's stainless dropouts fit right in now. Long time readers will recall that I've had to chuck these up in the drill press and cut down the diameter of the internal part of the dropout for previous forks. Anyhow, the bottom of the legs couldn't be cut shorter. So the rest came off the top, and again as much was cut off as possible, while still fitting the sockets in the crown. A test assembly showed that the wheel fits fine and that the fork corresponds correctly to the overall geometry of the bike.
I spent a good deal of time duburring the ends of the fork legs and then cleaning up all parts for joining. Until Freddy's Al-tife arrives, I've been doing my fine cleanup using one of the organic solvents (probably uses citric acid).
Out came the fork jig for the first time in a while, and everything was test fitted and the jig adjusted. Then everything comes off except the crown and steerer-tube. This crown has a lip on the bottom limiting how far the steerer is inserted. I ground a divot into the lip at the front and back. This way the filler can be fed from the bottom and its easy to see when its flowed out all the way around the steerer tube above the crown race. If the crown had no lip, it's just as easy to let the steerer stick out a little from the bottom and flow from the top.
It's interesting, I hadn't realized what a massive crown this is. It took about 3 hours to heat up. Maybe it just seemed that way, but it was slowwww. It cooled off just as slowly. In fact I began to wonder if it was stainless steel - but checking on the Ceeway site confirmed that it was not. Whew! Polishing the head tube will be enough for this old guy.
Hopefully we can finish the fork tomorrow and then move back to the frame. It would be great to ship it off to the painter by weeks end, but that depends on how busy the day job turns out to be.
Sundays are a day of work for me, so bike building had to wait until after the kids got to bed.
The task for tonight was to begin Sarah's fork. The crown is an Long Shen LC-27. It's a sloping crown with external tangs and a triangular cutout on the outside tang. The shape is really nice (unless you hate sloping crowns) and it has the rake built in.
The built in rake is important as it seemed like these legs would be hard to bend. They had to be trimmed from both the bottom and top. On the bottom, Joe B's stainless dropouts fit right in now. Long time readers will recall that I've had to chuck these up in the drill press and cut down the diameter of the internal part of the dropout for previous forks. Anyhow, the bottom of the legs couldn't be cut shorter. So the rest came off the top, and again as much was cut off as possible, while still fitting the sockets in the crown. A test assembly showed that the wheel fits fine and that the fork corresponds correctly to the overall geometry of the bike.
I spent a good deal of time duburring the ends of the fork legs and then cleaning up all parts for joining. Until Freddy's Al-tife arrives, I've been doing my fine cleanup using one of the organic solvents (probably uses citric acid).
Out came the fork jig for the first time in a while, and everything was test fitted and the jig adjusted. Then everything comes off except the crown and steerer-tube. This crown has a lip on the bottom limiting how far the steerer is inserted. I ground a divot into the lip at the front and back. This way the filler can be fed from the bottom and its easy to see when its flowed out all the way around the steerer tube above the crown race. If the crown had no lip, it's just as easy to let the steerer stick out a little from the bottom and flow from the top.
It's interesting, I hadn't realized what a massive crown this is. It took about 3 hours to heat up. Maybe it just seemed that way, but it was slowwww. It cooled off just as slowly. In fact I began to wonder if it was stainless steel - but checking on the Ceeway site confirmed that it was not. Whew! Polishing the head tube will be enough for this old guy.
Hopefully we can finish the fork tomorrow and then move back to the frame. It would be great to ship it off to the painter by weeks end, but that depends on how busy the day job turns out to be.
Saturday, April 22, 2006
Seat Cluster
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