here is a pic of the MRKIII dropouts.Even though they start out lighter than the Pauls, once you remove some of the tab material(they are very large to accommodate any ss dia. and angle)they are even lighter. Of course they don't have the groovy looks of the Pauls.

Here is what I spent my morning on. I hacked the binder bosses off and added new points fore and aft for the ButterCup mod.




It's not finished, I just got hungry and thought I'd post it whist I ate.


The pilot hole is for the future brake cable guide.

Finally got some frame parts this afternoon, all the stuff from Pacenti out of Tennessee. I thought he had relocated to California. I cut the cast in bridge out, drilled the drain hole and started smoothing out the many casting marks and imperfections. That was only good for 4 grams.

Brians Flat Bar SS

Here is the final design on Brians new frame. He rode a Cross Check last year and was very happy with the overall geometry, so we didn't make any radical changes. We shortened the chain stays to make it a little nimbler in the corners. Then raised the top tube to allow a longer head tube for increased stiffness. Lest I forget, we relaxed the seat tube a half a degree so he can run a zero set back seat post. The materials will be a mix of HOXPLAT and Columbus tubing with Long Shin long point traditional lugs. I ordered the longest tubes I could to minimize the butt lengths to reduce weight. It will have a Pacenti Artisan bottom bracket and his new MRKII dropouts with the stainless steel faces. And, of course the rear brake will have the ButterCup style pierced seat tube. The livery will be sky blue with indigo accents. Gonna look real nice! So far, only the BB and lug set are on back order. But they are supposed to ship by the end of the month, January I hope.

I have also ordered the materials for Dylans multi-speed "Team Edition" Frame and working on that ugly old frame of mine that I keep experimenting with.

Misc. Ramblings

The Holidays are over and it's time to get back to business. Here are the test bends that Vigilante Dave did at his place of employ. The tubing is 3/4' X .065" and they look great. We are design building a bike rack for Joshuas moto. As soon as Josh gets me the dimensions for the mounting perimeter for the rack, dave and I will bend them up. I'm thinking hard about brazing the rack together, so there is the frame building tie in.

And this is just one of the reasons why. Eons ago when I was very involved in off road racing, I fabbed many components and brazed them all. The roof rack on the Ghia was bent out of electrical conduit with an aluminum floor pan pop riveted in. I carried a full 5 gallon

gas can, a spare front suspension, a tow bar, etc. for 2000 miles with little or no pavement. It never broke. Same with the engine cage and skid pan. On the other hand, I built a lift kit and quadra shock set up for the van out of stainless steel, and the shock mounts broke after a couple of hundred miles. The stainless extra long u-bolts I fabbed for the lift kit kept stretching and the rear axle would come loose. I believe that a properly fillet brazed joint is as strong as or stronger than a welded joint on hot rolled steel. Of course, if Josh wants it welded, then we shall.