After yesterdays post, I went down and slotted Dougs chain stays for the dropouts.   I thought I heard him mention wanting a shamrock cut out on his bottom bracket, so I free handed a quick one to see how it would look.  That's a Pacenti bb, that has the tighter seat tube/down tube angle which is easier to work with when building cross frames with their longer forks.  Glad he is producing them again.  Happy New year!

 Yesterday, I sweat the stainless dropout faces on Tinas frame and did some of the "machine" work, head tube and bb facing and chasing, etc.  The bb facing is really more of a surface check and rarely ever removes any metal.  I also got Daves faces on along with the ss derailleur hanger shim.  But, enough of Dougs tubes came in that I can start on his frame.  So Tinas will be on the wall next to my unfinished fillet frame.

Jed was so kind to laser cut these dropout faces for me.  They are .020 stainless and will be silver brazed on to the dropouts to eliminate any paint chipping from the skewer.  I am going to retro-fit Major Daves commuter, that is already painted, but I will use an industrial epoxy.  Santa did bring me the PF30 adapter for the fillet frame.  Now I have the needed dimensions to finish it.

 After the flux soak on Tinas frame, it's time to start the detail finishing.  Here is the rear drop outs and how I am blending the two pieces to look like one.  Once the windows are fully radiused, the blend done, and the points thinned, they are going to look real nice.  Right now, the frame weighs 3lbs. 11 oz.  Hopefully, I can get it down to 3lbs.  9oz.

I was able to braze on the right seat stay on the fillet frame while Tinas was soaking.  It's a tank at 4lbs. 1oz. and it's not complete.  It'll be a hanger, too heavy to ride.

The last limpet is in place and off for a couple of hours soaking.

 The rear triangle is completely brazed and the brake bridge is almost ready to be brazed in.  I purchased a nice swoopy, light weight bridge, but it turned out the O.D. was larger than the seatstay.  So I used this one after I drilled it out to save a couple of grams.  Devin would appreciate it.

Got a few minutes before going to the pub, so I thought I would start prepping the right seatstay on the fillet frame for something to do.  Tinas frame is in the fixture ready braze tomorrow morning and will hopefully be complete by the end of the day.  Then finish the fillet frame as far as I can.  Most of Dougs tubing is ordered, only needing clarification on what style of cable guide he wants.

 There's a beautiful fillet under there.  Because of all the lug and bb port manipulation to build this 44cm frame, I silver brazed it with 45%.  It fills any gaps better than the 56%.  I'm also trying out a flux and it seems to work OK.  I got one seat stay on this A.M. and checked the dropout alignment. The large blob of silver at the dropout joint is cosmetic only.  I'm going to shape and blend the joint for aesthetics.

I thought I would play around with the super macro on my camera on some of the shore lines from today.   The day pretty much went up in smoke as I had to take three trips to the welding supply store to finally procure a full and working
 acetylene bottle.
 Even with the wasted

3 hours, I was able to complete the frame through both chainstays.

The lugs are "skinned" and tubes sanded and solvent cleaned.  Time to put in the fixture and braze up.

A pic of the ongoing fillet work.  I'm going to hang this frame up again and finish Tinas while Doug and I work out the final details on his frame and order the materials.

The water bottle bosses arrived yesterday and this is as far as I got.  After an icy bearded ride to the Canby ferry and back, the garage was too cold to work in.  But, I did get on one seat stay and the bosses on Tinas frame.

 I finished the interior cable routing for the rear derailleur and ran a new cable through the many times kinked housing that I used when feeding the brass tubing and the action was surprisingly smooth.  The ss tubing will be for the
 front derailleur.
  It was too cold to take

 the time to clean up the inside of the bb for a better pic.  I will attempt to attach the seatstays tomorrow if I can round up enough heaters. 



Tinas front triangle is in the tacking fixture and ready to braze.  Except, due to my poor inventory controls, I'm out of water bottle boss braze-ons.  So now it will sit until new stock arrives.  Here is the heart I cut into her bottom bracket and the reshaped point.

Well, I couldn't let this day go to waste, so I'm back to work on the interior routing for the shift cables on the fillet brazed frame.  The rear is a slam dunk, but I will still need the PF30 adapter for the front.

I got the seat tube lug complete for today and re contoured the bottom head tube lug.  They will look nice in pink pearl next to the metallic anthracite.

 I ended up yesterday with the chainstays slimmed down a little more, I'm trying to make them graceful so that they won't over power the small frame size.  I also continued with the modifications to the seat tube lug, getting the rear point add-on cut out.

 This morning I brazed it on and shaped it.

It got too cold to work in the garage yesterday, even with both heaters blazing, so I spent the afternoon working on Dougs new cross frame design.  It will be pretty standard Neilo design , but with disc brakes and maybe Di2.  Again, sweet!

 The day ended up with Tinas front triangle in the fixture in a rough sort of way.  Still some minor finessing with the lug and bottom bracket ports, but looks great.

The seat post binder is almost gone.  I will add a point in the back and carve the apron into a double point like Daves frame. 

 It doesn't like like much.  But, I was able to change the port angle from 79 to 84.5 degrees with minimal metal removal and lots of cold work.  Pretty darn good, the old skills are still there.

I'm still working on the dropouts.  The top one has the windows hogged out and a significant amount of material removed from the back side.  Still too bulky, maybe open up the windows.

Here is the head tube lugs at 103 mm.  I'm not real fond of how they look at the meet.  Definitely have to think on it.

I got the dropouts brazed to the chainstays and seat tube to the bottom bracket.  I like to leave some tube showing inside the bb.  That way I can get a little fillet for additional strength even though it doesn't need it.  When the frame is complete, I will dress the inside of the bb.  You can see one of the dropout windows is almost done.

I spent the afternoon setting the tacking fixture up and at the last minute I decided to hog out the windows on the dropouts.  I might put ss faces on them also.  Time for a Sucks.

Now that the Tryptophan has worn off, I can get back to work on Tinas frame.  I identified and marked the high spot of the bow on the 3 main tubes to make sure the triangle is assembled with them in plane.  I did some carving on the seat tube port just to dress it up a little. I also reconfiguredthe port angle a little with the die grinder, workingtowardsthat 55.6 degree between the down and seat tubes. 

 I'm caught up on repairs, so back to work on Tinas frame.  The bottom bracket is set for 60.5 degrees between the down and seat tubes. But, because her frame is so small, the that angle has tightened up to 55.6, you can see the difference from the protractor.  Using my primitive benders, I was able to close the angle considerably.  I will complete the final fitment in the tacking fixture.

Here is an "almost" final dwg. of Tinas frame.  Due to her opting for 700s and the low stand over heigth, there are some tight front triangle angles.  The bb shouldn't be any problem, but the head tube lugs will probably turn into a mono-lug with re-angled ports. Her tube set is S3 and Columbus with Llewellyn lugs and bb.  The drop outs are Long Shin adjustable that weigh in at 135 gms., definitely going to hog out the windows on them.

I brazed the chain stays yesterday under my new heat lamp and it was quite nice.  With out the bb adapter I need to determine the cable routings, I probably shouldn't have,  but I was on a roll and couldn't stop.  I pre drilled the exit hole for the front derailer cable so that shouldn't be an issue.  But the entry hole into the chain stay for the rear derailer might cause me problems.  I'm going to hang it on the wall until the adapter shows up.

I went ahead and started fitting up the 410 mm chain stays last night, but had to quit early due to the poor lighting in the garage.  I can put on the chain stays and still have access to the bb where I will put in the front derailer exit port.  So now I'm thinking matte black with a gloss black logo. 

Daves commuter is complete with the new head badge and two tone back color.

Here are the entry ports for the shift cables.  The PF30 to external bearing adapter that I need will not be available until the first of the year.  I need it to ensure there will be no cable housing/bb interference when I am fitting up the routing through the bb shell.  I will probably hang this frame up and start on Tinas frame until the adapter is available.

OK, this was an interesting endeavour.  I wanted to put in the housing guides after the front triangle was brazed up because I want to use 56% silver to attach the brass housings.  It took a couple of hours of finessing, but they are now in. 

 Here is the first revised head badge, ready for Daves commuter as soon as we can find the time.  I used Craigs new Papillon TT frame that I cut the integrated seat mast on for the back drop.

 I'm actually finished with the fillet brazing and the frame will be soaking for a few hours.  I weighed all the pieces before soaking and it came out to 4lbs. 4oz.  Even with all 3 cables internally routed, .9mm top tube wall thickness, and the heavier Columbus seat tube, it will come in under 4lbs.

The Paragon dropouts are in the chain stays and I've started the finish work on them.