Leslie's mock up

At the end of the day I took a little bit of time and assembled a few bit's and pieces onto Leslie's frame to see how it looks. Here are the results! What do you think?

I'm still planning on brazing one more set of seat stays that will run from the top tube back around the rear dropouts.

By the way. Look at those front forks! They are the first pair made on my new fork bender. Are they beautiful or what? They give the bike a real classic look. Don't you think?

Stay tuned for more of the saga.

Great time in the shop

This week sure has flown by. You look back and wonder where has the time gone?

Well I've continued on with my sub assemblies. So here are a few pics.

I started assembling everything in the jig last weekend and doing a little tacking.



Quite a bit of time this past week has been used to set up a new fork bender that a friend made for me in his wood shop. He made the wooden part of it and I made the steel part that holds it and the arm that pulls the blade. Here it is in action!

Starting an all new bike!

Sorry I haven't posted for a while. I started a new bike 3 weeks ago.

It all started when a gentleman called me a while back and wanted to have a bike built for his wife as an anniversary gift. So we chatted for a while and it all sounded pretty straight forward until he mentioned that he thought she would like a girls bike. A "Girls" bike? Are you sure? He was.

Now I have never built a girls bike before but I would do some research and should be able to come up with some lugs somewhere. Well...No such luck. Then it got exciting. I knew I would have to make my own lugs and it would would be a whole new experience. So I ordered some chromoly tubing and started by turning it on my new "old" lathe.

I started cutting tubes and brazing my sub assemblies. First the seat tube to the bottom bracket.

Next I brazed the down tube to the head tube.

This was pretty much a days work. Stay tuned for the next installment.

Dwight

Erin's Forks

In the picture above I'm starting out by knotching a fork blade that the dropout will insert into. The slot needs to be a few thousandths larger than the dropout.

Next I sandblast the forks inside and out to prep them for brazing.

Here I've brazed the dropout in with silver braze.

Next I spend some time cleaning it up. Sanding and filing.

And finally I assemble it into the fixture to braze the fork blades to the crown.

I've been busy at the shop most of this week. The above picture shoes the stainless steel rear drop outs that I'm using on Erin's track bike. They are silver brazed onto the chain stays but not yet to the seat stays. I will give them a high polish when finished and leave them unpainted.
Looking like a bike. The front triangle is complete and I just finished brazing up the chain stays. I've formed the seat stays and slotted them to fit the rear drop outs.
Another view.
This is Maarten (Mar-teen). He is staying with us for a few days. Great buddy!

Vacation!!!!

While most people look forward to vacation so they can relax I look forward to spending more time in my shop. Since this is still a part time venture for me I look forward to the occasions when I can put a block of time into bike building. This is Erin's Track bike. I had ordered parts a while ago and designed the bike but was not happy with the way the parts were fitting. So I ordered some more parts and started over again.

The track dropouts (above) are stainless steel and I'll put a nice polish on them. The pictures you see here are of the work I did today. The bike is going to come out real nice and I'm looking forward to Erin racing it. I will keep the blog up this week and keep everyone apprised of the build.

Above is the seat post lug. I used this type of lug once before. Makes for a very pretty bike.

Stay tuned!

div>

29er nearing completion

Here are the latest pics. of Margie's 29er. I made some changes to it since the last pic. I had posted. I did not like the way the seat stays had come out so I cut them off and mounted some new ones. Then I added the small brace between the seat tube and the top tube. The seat stays are brazed to both the seat tube and that small brace. This bike should be rock solid on the trail!

In the background of the pics. you can see part of my shop. A homemade sandblast cabinet, my lathe and my mill/drill machine. I love this shop. It's small, so it's easy to heat and when I mis-place my tools it doesn't take too long to find them.

Soon I will be getting back to Erin's track bike. I just got some new parts for that build as well.
Talk with you soon.