Latest Update

I spent the weekend at the Chicago Bike where I shared a booth with another Chicago builder - Owen Lloyd. We had a great time and met lots of nice people.

Saturday night, I had an email from Gordon with pictures of Linda's freshly sprayed frame. To see them head over to www.lindasnewbike.blogspot.com

Owen's father took a couple of pictures of our booth Sunday afternoon - thought you might like to see them as well (click to see large versions).

First up is Owen with his first frame (created at UBI Bike School). It's a pure track geometry, but with a brake hole in the fork crown. It's finished old school in pure chrome, and set up for city riding.



Next is the row of our other bikes. On the front is my fillet brazed (except the BB) trackie. It's built oversized with a 35mm 9/6/9 downtube. After the chrome, this seemed to be the next best eye-catcher in the booth. Behind it in lavender is a trackie that Owen built using Kavalinka castings. Then is the randonneur that I'm building for my wife. Primer on it is to help find dings and file marks. Parts are being test fitted - you can see that I haven't got a front fender installed - nor the chain or front derailer cable. Behind that is a nude frame with Hellenic stays, just brazed up by Owen last week. It also has its kit on for test fitting. Finally, at the back, is one of my carbon frames - in fact it is my daily rider.

From the next angle, you can see of attempt to 'decorate' our booth. Some pictures of other builds on the back curtain (and a Cycles Noir sign). Also, you can see our table where we had a selection of tubes/lugs/etc on display in 'the raw'. Also, we had our business cards, give away head-tube stickers, and signup for an electronic news letter.


Again, we had a great time and we're hopefull of getting some business out of this. Thanks for all who attened and supported us.

See Linda's Blog

We have a design for the paint on Linda's new bike - and are awaiting her ok. Take a peek over at lindasnewbike.blogspot.com.

I've been busy readying some bikes for the Chicago Bike Show, which is held out on Navy Pier on April 14 & 15 (chicagobikeshow.com). I should have a nice track bike, a randonneur, possibly Linda's carbon racer, and maybe one other bike on display. I'll be sharing the space with Owen Lloyd who is another emerging builder in Chicago.

I'll have some pictures up soon of some construction aspects of one frame that has been expanding my skill set.

More soon.

Snowy Day

It's a snowy day, so I'm stealing some time to update the blog.

My first rider (bike that I rode instead of cutting up) came back from the sand-blaster. These folks are local, but I need to find someone cheaper - they charged their minimum ($100) for what should be maybe a $25-50 job.

Overall it looks pretty good, but they blew through the edge of one seat-stay cap. Out came the torch. This is a perfect application for Freddy's Filet-Pro. Fill the spot a little high, cool and clean flux, then file it down with a half-round and it's as good as new. Some could do that with 56% silver, but Filet-Pro makes it soo much easier.

Anyhow, over to the Ace to select colors and decided on Colonial Blue (a very soft grey-blue) with white (head-tube and maybe seat-tube). I think it will be subtle but very attractive, and in keeping with the French character of this bike. I gave a test shot of primer to see how it took to the blasted frame. It looks like a course of sandpaper will be in order before priming, to knock down the worst of the texture left behind by the blaster.

There's another new bike in the queue - a track frame based on Colubus SLX tubes and an old lug set that I picked up on EBay. I'll have to post lug pictures soon - they're sort of interesting.

Henry James sent me some of their Gas Flux brass rod and a pound of flux. I'm going to do a little more brass work and see how I like it. I'm moving to the point where: 1) I believe that the heat of brass brazing doesn't hurt tubing - if the brazing is done well; 2) Some parts of the frame benefit from being done in brass. I'll keep you all posted on the progress. An interesting aspect of the Gas Flux rods is that they're 2-3 times as long as Freddy's rods. On the one hand, this could be a lot to handle (unless I cut them up). On the other, it could limit the losses related to the short end that can't be held and flowed at the same time.

I had what was to be my first rolling frame (mentioned in a prior post) that I'll call Old Number 1 or ON1 for short. It turned out that it had a marvelously aligned front triangle and a well aligned rear triangle which weren't in alignment with each other. Hmmm.

The new rear triangle is now fitted for ON1. Grinding out the BB ports was interesting. If you're not careful, the spigots can end up with very thin walls. The key is that its a 3 dimensional puzzle, and one has to keep checking to make sure that excess material is being removed from the right places. The dropouts are HJ stainless, and naturally they had to be thinned to fit into the chain and seat stays. The seat stays fit into ports the seat-cluster - which had to be ground out like the BB. However, as these are considerably smaller in diameter, it required a much smaller rotary file - making for a slower job.

Anyhow, all are fitted and cut to length. All that's left is to clean, flux, and braze - which might happen this weekend. Yea, I miss the torch time.

The storm has brought cold with it, although its actually a little above freezing. Anyway, it's delaying the spray out of Frame 1. If this cold continues, I may accelerate my plans to practice vacuum bagged carbon joints. This will be done in the house anyway - where its warm. With luck, I may even have a prototype frame with bagged joints by January. That would be fun.

Well, that's all for now. See ya soon.

Catching Up Again

Tonight I put the last filler of epoxy into the filets on Linda's bike. After a little sanding, it'll be ready to head to Gordon for paint. Naturally, it wasn't possible to sand tonight, so I spent time on several other projects.

First, I've organized a work space in the basement. It's well lit and has two good-sized work surfaces. This is where I'll do my vacuum bagging. It close to the furnace, and so tends to be warmer than the rest of the house - which is good for curing epoxy. There is a little more organizing of tools and materials to do, but things are just about ready here.

Second, I attacked the first frame that I built with the intention of being painted and built up. After dropping it off, the painter got back to me with the information that the rear triangle was out of alignment - and so its sat in his shop for a couple of years. This fall we arranged to get it back to me. I should note that this frame is the one that convinced me to buy a jig - it was just too hard to build the rear-end without. The funny thing is, knowing what I do now (how to pin or tack joints), a straight, aligned, rear triangle seems quite doable without a jig.

Looking this beast over, the front triangle seems fine. It passed the check on the alignment table - and so is deemed worthy. The rear triangle was beyond repair. Out came the hack saw and I cut each chain stay about 2 inches from the BB. It was pleasing to see that the stays held their alignment even after being cut. Then I cut the first seat stay about half an inch from the seat lug. It too held alignment, so I cut the final seat stay similar to the first.

The seat lug has ports for mounting the seat stays, sort of a fast back style. These stays were cut short because they needed to be ground out of the lug. The chain stay stubs were left longer so that they can be heated and pulled out of the BB.

The now disconnected rear triangle is held together by the brake bridge and the dropouts. And, it looks good and in alignment with itself. Yea. This is now set aside for a while

Third, it was organization time. And this will take some time. To begin with, I inventoried tubing and reorganized its storage to save some space. For the record, I have 4 Metax front triangles, 2 sets of 653 (1 std, 1 OS) w/ 725 rear triangles, 2 full sets of SLX and 1 full set of SL (11 tubes), 1 set of LIFE sized for SL6 lugs, 3-4+ sets work of Deda & True Temper std & OS tubes, 4 pair of Reynolds pre-raked fork blades, 2 pair of Nivachom blades, 4 pair of ZeroTre blades, 2 pair of round track blades, a variety of seat stays (including Metax, Biconical, and normal 14 & 16mm) and chain stays (oval, round, round-oval-round), a bunch of head tubes, and a small supply of steerers. That's a lot more tubing than I realized. Everything is now organzied, labeled, and put away, and many boxes have been collapsed and put in the recycle bin.

With one frame and fork now in the car's trunk (so it can go for blasting), one frame about to be cut up to liberate its carbon tubes for practice joints, and the frame mentioned above in play - there are many fewer stray frames hanging around and in the way.

Next steps include: creating more hanging space for parts and tools, making more holder blocks for small files, and rotary tool items (sanding drums, flap wheels, buffers, grinders, etc.). Then I need a better system for storing (and making accessible) the various sand papers.

One disadvantage of my garage is that it has a very low ceiling. The tracks for the garage door use a special short radius piece so that the door fits. This means that its hard to go up for storage. Therefore, more bicycle parts need to find a place in the basement to free up more space for tools and materials. As you can see, this is going to be an ongoing project for quite some time.

Anyhow, my building priorities have shifted to: a) install the new rear triangle on Bike #1, then paint it (using rattle cans); b) Get the blue bike back from blasting and give it a good paint job; c) Finish Aram's track bike; d) Build a townie bike using some nice Tange lugs I've been hording and a set of SLX, build a Metax roadster - after that the world is too fluid to plan.

It looks like my hands will be full with re-orging the shop, refining my carbon vacuum bag builds, and a bunch of steel bikes. Stay tuned for the fun.

Dateline Tuesday December 15

Just a quick update.

Linda's bike is coming along and should get packed off to the painter within two weeks. I'm currently cleaning up joints and spilled epoxy from bonding the front triangle and the chain-stays. Then the seat-stays get fitted, bonded and a little cleanup, and we can ship.

Brigette's bike is held up waiting on a stencile. He name decals weren't opaque enough against the carbon tubes - so Gordon is painting her name. He lays out the name, and has a shop computer-cut a stencil from mylar. But, until the shop gives them up, we're stuck.

I got a couple of packages from FiberGlast today. I've been assembling materials from a number of sources to start practicing vacuum bagged joints on carbon tubes. This should allow me to make a stronger & lighter carbon frame while allowing my more flexibility in frame design compared to using tubes and lugs. I hope to have a production version on display in time for the Chicago Bike Show.

I'm also waiting for some more stainless tubing to arrive. I've assembled three frames worth of Metax tubing, except for the chainstays. And, I may have found a source (which is next to impossible) for one or more sets of single-bend Metax chainstays. At least one set of this tubing will be combined with Richissmo lugs, and hopefully this frame will also be ready for the show. By the time Linda's frame is gone, everything necessary will be in stock and ready to go.

I want to do another stainless frame using Slant 6 lugs and the new Columbus XCr tubing. Unfortunately, they are only offering a 38mm down-tube to start, and the SL6 needs a 35mm. It would be possible to use a Reynolds 953 downtube, but this formulation of stainless is more sensitve to staining in the presence of salt (sweat).

I am definately doing a Slant 6 frame using a set of Columbus Life tubing. This should be pretty light. Its being created to fit a friend who rides a Serrotta Ti frame. Nice bike. But with the right paint job, I think the Slant 6 will look much sexier.

Meanwhile, I've found a blaster to strip my steel road frame. I've decided to fix a couple of cosmetic issues and give it a decent paint job. The blasting is more expensive than I expected (quote of $150) so I may need to find another source long-term. But this will get me going for now. Then I have the first steel frame I ever built with a did a beautifully aligned rear triangle, it just isn't aligned to the front triangle. This was built pre-jig. The front looks good, so the back will come off and a new one will go on in its place. Oh, and Aram's track frame is close to having its filets cleaned up and being ready for paint.

Wow... that's a lot of projects. I better break the log jam and start completing some of them.

More soon.

BikeCad

I finally broke down and bought BikeCad.

It's earned its keep already. I just did a new DCS frame design. The challenge here is to work within the available lug angles. This covers a pretty broad range of fits, but sometimes finding the right compromise takes a bit of trial and error.

BikeCad can display angles as different variables are fiddled allowing me to quickly zero in on the best lug set for properly fitting a given rider. Cool.

That said, I think a better answer is to develop a system where any angles are feasible at any joint. The theory of how to do this is relatively simple, and involves composite construction techniques that I've used in other contexts. But, the real key is making sure that the joint is stronger than the tubes. After all, no rider wants to find him/herself suddenly riding a pair of unicycles, eh?

From my perspective, the most feasible method is to miter tubes closely, and bond them with epoxy. Then layer additional carbon fiber on layers using a vacuum system with bleeder felt to extract excess epoxy and air.

So, there's a need to test this process to ensure that I get: 1) enough strength; 2) consistent results. Which means that I need some practice tube.

"Fortunately" if you look at Linda's blog, you'll see I had a little problem with a front triangle. So... I'm going to cut out the tubes and make them my first sacrificial "test tubes." After that I'll get some tubes from McLean and try to build myself a frame. So, stay tuned on this front too.

In a different vein, I've found some sources for Metax stainless tubes fro the front triangle. So, some stainless projects are on about to come online very soon.

Expect to see activity starting to pick up again.

Cheers

Catching Up

Hey, it's only been a month. A month!!!! Yowza!

Work and the first bug of the year. It's been pretty much 7 days a week for the day job of late. And, the kids shared a virus from school. So I missed the Missouri MS ride and the Apple Cider Century. Boo on that.

Meanwhile the garage has been filling with parts (build kits and one-off treasures from EBay).

Add it all up, and I've been highly unproductive on the framebuilding front. It actually reached the point where I couldn't reach tools and parts in the garage. Ugh!!!

Last weekend I got back on the bike (34 & 32 degrees F on Sat & Sun at 6:30am).

I'm slow but it felt good. Last week I hoped to start reorganizing the garage and basement - but, some out of town clients came into town and it got busy. This week, I've finally got past the o-load and made some progress making space.

Tonight, I got back to work on Linda's frame. More on the other blog about that. The key thing is progress is being met.

One other thing that's taken time has been beginning to form up an organization that (for want of any better name) I'm calling the Lake Michigan Chapter of The Cycle Design Group. The intent is to create professional group that can advance the interests of custom/hand-built framebuilders. To few riders have exposure to what's available. Very few recognize or appreciate the incredible bargains a true custom handbuilt frame represents compared to a manufactured bike. And, there really are some legislative issues that could benefit from our input. So, onward with the LMCTCDG. More on this later.

Hopefully, there will be more pix to post in the next week or two.

Cheers,

Current Project Pictures

The front triangle is now bonded.

Lindas Bike

I'm building a bike for Linda using Deda's DCS carbon lug and tube set. The head-tube is bonded. This is a tricky operation as the headset cups are bonded into the lugs, so its imperative that the lugs be held during the bonding process in a manner that assures that they remain parallel. That is done.

The main triangle will get bonded this week and I'll be posting some pictures.

Sarah's Completed Bike

Here's Sarah's bike - finally complete.

It features the fine paint work of Gordon Lechner.