Here we are so far...........................................lots o' black.

Buttercup has returned from the abyss known as the paint shop! I haven't seen it in person, this is a pic I stole from Devin's blog. Hope to amass all the parts and begin assembly today at home.

Six hours working on the seat stays! And then ran out of gas before I was finished. Not real keen on lugging it down to Airgas in my messenger bag, always hurts the shoulder. Prior to brazing I did an alignment check on the front triangle and right chain stay with the seat stay tacked. Spot on.
Shaky old man pic, probably due to the Reverend yesterday . I made the mandrels to bend the tubing out of stuff laying around the garage. It still doesn't have the arc I would like, so I will keep finessing until it does. In the old days we used to make tube benders out of VW wheels when we would build off road cars.

A rough mock up of the seat stays. They will be 45 mm below the top of the seat post though. had to fab little tooling blocks to provide a linear edge to cold set the tabs on, pita.

I walked the Sherwood course today with Dylan. He and Vigilante Dave rode it afterwards. Long, slippery, and a hard uphill pull to the finish line.

A few shots of your crankset installed

and the chain ring clearance. Took a

quite a dimple to clear the 42 tooth

inner ring.

This is the "dynafile" that I bought to perfect

the scallops on the dropouts. I just received

the tubing for the seat stay. Now to find a way

to bend it.........................

The left side chain stay is silver brazed in place, but I want to

make sure there is adequate chain ring clearance on the right side before brazing.

A little better shot of the scallop on the dropout. My new dynafile does

a good job.

Here is a quick mock up of the chain stays at 435 mm
and 64.5' off the seat tube. The wheel is my 135mm off my
Redline. I'll do a little cosmetic silver tomorrow morning,
then probably brass braze the stays to the BB. For the
chain stay/fender mount bridge, do you want a braze-on so you can bolt the fender, or do you just want to use the clip on the fender?

A blurry pic, but it will work! Lugs, s-bend chain stays, low mount disc brakes, and 135mm dropout spacing.

I cut 50 mm off he BB end and 30 mm off the dropout end and still have about 20 mm fore and aft movement to optimaly position the bends. I'll try to have them ready for brazing today. Need to provide sufficient clearance for the chain rings. What crank set is Devin going to run?

Is today the day that the paint shop calls and sez the SS is done?

Life gets really busy with cross season, soccer, college football, etc.

Any way I hope to leave the shop early today, if the manager will allow, and finish up the front triangle of the Mule.

Here is the latest sticky wicket. The low mount dropouts are so long that they will force the chainstays so far into the BB that the s-bend will be all but eliminated. I don't know how long the butt length is on the dropout end and will call Nova today.