Thursday, February 24, 2011

 The rest of the tubes have arrived. So after I finished lacing up a wheel set for a customer, I mitered and fit the top tube. In this pic, the triangle is within +/- 1mm. That will be taken care of on the final fit for silver braze.  Speaking of silver, my last order was 35 bucks an ounce, ouch!  Because of the small diamond shaped windows in the drop outs, I'm contemplating adding additional diamond shaped windows in the chainstay lug ports and top tube lugs. It will either add visual balance or look corny, dunno.


Dazza, at Llewellyn, has come up with his own design of cable stops which are much more aesthetically pleasing than what is on the market today.  But, they are $16.00 a piece, and I am cheap.  I'm taking triple stops and hacking off the end stops, then reshaping what's left into , I hope, a very pleasing looking cable stop.

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Even though Devins and my tubes,etc. haven't shown up yet, I've been busy.  Seems like the hammer heads are trying for a head start on the season.  There's been no shortage of race bike and wheel set builds the last two weeks. And the Fedex guy just dropped off another wheel set build from Alchemy.
Devs lug set and bottom bracket from Llewellyn did show up and I've already cut off the STI mounts as the bike will be internaly wired.  I've gotton as far as I can on mine sans the
top tube.  I use the exact miter length of the top tube to pull the geometry together after roughing in the dimensions to +/- 1mm.  Soon, I hope.

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Did a preliminary polish on the dropouts.  It's easier now than when the rear triangle is brazed up.  I had originally bought these dropouts for another frame, but when I weighed them I decided to put them on mine.  I also want to use these on the robocrosser.
The dropouts and chainstays are ready to be silver brazed.  I mock them up with the bottom bracket at the designed length of 410mm.  I didn't realize the fit into the dropout was a compound angle, more work than anticipated.  Because I have to compress the seat and down tube angle, I will have the full frame in the fixture when I tack the front triangle.  This way, I can insure the seat tube/chainstay angle won't be compromised.
Time to move on to my personal "dry" road bike.  Up here in the northwest you have to have a minimum of two bikes, one for rain and one for dry.
The design has changed daily, but I believe I have finally arrived at the best compromise between weight, comfort, and handling as I can get for a man of normal stature.

I have ordered the lug set and bottom bracket for the robocrosser from Llewellyn, shipping is spendy.  Today I will order his front tube set and my 315gms. of lightness fork from Henry James.

Saturday, February 5, 2011

 Its finished.  Just waitin' for Devo to come and pick it up.  For not being a MTB guy, I really like It, very clean.  Now on to my personal road bike.



Thursday, February 3, 2011

20lbs. 5 oz. without pedals, chain and cog.  So close.

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

A teaser for Devo.  I should have the remainder of the parts tomorrow and will finish the head badge on Thursday. So final assembly should be complete on Friday.

I've spent a good portion of today refining the laser cut head badge design.  I have increased the overall dimension .125" so the top button head screws won't crowd the lion.  Most of the time was spent improving the detail of the lion.  I also minimaly increased the font size.  Should look lots better.