I worked on some repairs and upgrades of OBB’s (other builders bikes) which is pretty fun. I really admire the Stowe, early IF and Steelman frames I recently worked on. Touching the thin small diameter tubes of those bikes took me back and got me thinking…

It’s interesting how things change over the years.

I remember going to Interbike (the old LA trade show, later Vegas) when mountain bikes first hit the scene. Many of the existing brands didn’t have mountain bikes and you could see how it effected them. Some of them made jokes. Many had lost their asses missing BMX or not recognizing it as legit and were set on not missing this trend.

Some had tried to build them with small road tubes and modified lugs, mixing in fillet brazing. TIG was around but it would be next year before it had swamped the market and “oversize” was upon us (though perhaps not the tag) as were more new brands and concepts. Tons of cranks and brakes. BAM then aluminum struck. There were a lot of sore cookies out there. I felt that way, not stoked when import bikes took the lions share of the market. Some changes, I choose not to embrace and continued as I was.

When composite construction began, I found it interesting and supported it. From that point until now, I haven’t really seen a place for myself in the big picture. Much of what I do is for dirt racing and the 10lbs+ production DH frames were pretty pointless for me but things have rapidly changed in the past couple of years. I can’t see myself making one-piece injection molded frames but “tube-to-tube” construction is working quite well and I have the ability to mitre shaped tubes (CNC mill). to go far beyond the usual limitations that face the glue crowd. Consider the fact that I can shape aluminum tubes to use as prototype molds for composite tube construction.

I guess the next thing on the horizon really needs to be an oven. The glue I have used in the past didn’t require any heat but who knows what is going on these days? If I could go 700F, I could do a full anneal process on most aluminum alloys. The next step up would be stainless or inconel lined for solution at 1000 degrees.

This would be sort of a “holy grail” oven with my space and electricity in mind.

http://www.whkay.com/batch-ovens-box-tempering-furnaces/item-20347/

Here is something to look at

So, I figured I would do a bit of welding for cash. It worked out nicely and only took three days. I learned the new “angle” for displaying a sneaker ( I made stuff for big shoe store chain) for 2013 and sorry if I don’t care. I am sure many paid dearly. I can think of someone already.

I will be back to work tomorrow. Until then, I offer you this Carl Sagen video.

The back building had become completely clogged with bikes and bike boxes, the floors hadn’t been swept and making room for Mickey’s junk pushed it over the top.

I spent all day Saturday and a couple hours on Sunday making improvements as well as cleaning up. Lanie came in with me on Sunday and we were able to sweep at least 60% of the floor. I came home and worked on a design for a new seat stay mitre fixture. This one is lathe-mounted (may be I mentioned this a few days ago) and will free up one of the Bridgeport mills for doing first cut on down tubes.

The focus of today is shipping. I have to figure out how long that will take and work backwards so I can spend at least a few more hours cleaning. When I get to that point, I have to clean.

Bondo over the welds on this bike. Is that cool?
I sort of like the look but don’t really want to sand bondo.

The bike was constructed with a unique solution to the cable stop problem that “no one is talking about” (I just made that up, don’t panic).

They made a small strap of steel with two threaded fittings (for the adjusters) brazed on the ends. That was cool but the thing was bolted on with two tiny screws.

Something busted one side off.

Someone got out a mig gun,
there was a flash of light,
a scream and..
the frame was screwed.

The assailant ended up depositing a wart-like blob on the head tube and lost the small piece.

Other than paint damage and a lot of blood it wasn’t bad. Once I had it cleaned up I machined a sweet cable stop widget that is bonded to the head tube.

Please enjoy these images. You can click on them for a close-up in the awesome gallery (that I just noticed)

The title? I just used that to get your attention.

OK, so I am wearing camo in the film. When you walk into a coffee shop while driving through some small town and see a guy with a huge beard and a full camo suit staring out the window? The guy has a box of 30-06 and 2 lbs of jerky in his hands but a pair of track drops in his pocket.

That would make a funny character but I don’t have a 30-06.

hanger

Before that, I have a few touch-ups on the Sugarglider and a repair of a fine Italian aluminum road frame. Ill keep you posted.

You guy can make suggestions as to what you might like to see or discuss. I think of interesting things during the day but I wonder if those ideas are like drunk ideas. They don’t make sense later. I am finally over that friggin cold and my legs are aching to ride.

This is a bike I have been thinking about for a while. I wanted to do some brazing with a gas torch and had some ideas. I also wanted to do a 650 bike and either a fixed gear or a hub-gear bike as well as something with slacker geometry and tight radius fork rake for the messed up roads around here. Oh ya, I wanted to try bi-laminated lugs.

If you have never heard of them, here is the scoop. Generally, lugs are either cast from steel or stamped from sheet. Bi-lam lugs are simply sleeves that are slipped over the ends of the tubes and brazed on. There are several potential sequences of construction and I tried them all.

One of the things I dislike about modern lugged bikes is the superfluous piece of head tube that sticks up above the top tube. It’s an acquired taste that I hope to gain soon.
It’s too bad that when the other important design features leave you in such a precarious position. When the bike is built it’s better.

This bike won’t have that problem because it will have a 1930′s style “head clip” type stem that takes up tons of space as well as other outdated concepts such as steel handlebars, cranks and 2X adjustable seat post and few if any alternate gear ratios.

The first thing was to modify a BMX integrated head tube for the upper cup and head tube lug sleeve. The reason it looks weird is using an integrated head tube is somewhat unusual. I want this thing to look like it was built in a dirt floor shop in London in 1931

top bearing cup and head tube segment

I wasn’t sure how the brazing would go I started with the head lug/top tube assembly

I didn’t want to braze this frame in my fixture so initially I just tacked it with the torch and sweat brazed it on my stand. It didn’t come out straight. It had just a bit of twist and I would rather throw it away than fight tubes like that. I had the idea, since the angles were set to clamp it in another fixture I have. This device has some interesting abilities and takes up little space in the shop.

Here is some sweat joints and the fixture I mentioned.

Once all this was done, I did the fillets (pronounced fill-it’s). I know how they came out but my eyes are ready to fall out of my head. More later. Thanks for tuning in.

Since I started doing more butted tube projects I found myself nearly dropping my nice Helios dial-bore gauge. I said “NO” to that almost daily risk and made a nice tool for measuring the tube wall thickness. It’s not so much that I want to know what the wall is, I want to know when it changes. That is what this machine really does nicely. I mounted it to the side on my alignment table for ease of use.

The other piece I made is for holding ISP type seat tubes in the Anvil fixture.

I also made more bikes.

I have been doing a bunch of retro type projects as well as some current stuff and after a bunch of steel frames, I just finished an aluminum road bike.

Also in current news, I rebuilt a Yeti fork with new everything and it came out sweet!

What was not so much fun is my home computer got a virus AND someone keeps trying to hack my accounts. If this is your job, quit.