Chad's Triathlon frame

Chad called me early this summer to ask if I could build him a unique triathlon frame. He was tired of having the same bike as everyone else week in and week out at all the races. While a steel tri frame would be unusual enough, I decided to use a technique called bi-laminate for the joints due to the unusual angles that a tri frame presents. I learned how to do the bi-laminate style while I was starting out at Serotta, but we just called them "half lugs"! Bi-laminate sounds so much more refined, right? ;-)



















I've got the fork built, it's getting chromed, and then the rest of the tubes and lugs prepped and ready to go. Chad also wanted to go with polished stainless chain stays, I've got the parts above, but I brazed the main diamond up first.




















Here's the finished frame, bi-lam lugs, aero seat stays, and stainless chain stays and dropouts.
I think Chad will be the only guy at the races with a frame like this!
















I did a slightly different treatment for the seat stay ends, hopefully this will make it a nice clean mask line for the paint to polish transition. The stays and dropouts will be polished, but the tricky thing is, how to do the transition to paint.



















Down tube lug with barrel adjuster and shifter stops on the down tube.



















Seat lug with the massive aero seat stays attached.



















Top tube lug.




OK, these last couple are some shots of the next frame in the quene, I got a start on it yesterday. Pretty standard road frame, some small lug carving and it'll have a stainless drive side chain stay and a chrome fork. Should be pretty classic.

Jon's 650B Randoneer

Well, if you've been watching my blog you would probably conclude that I haven't been building anything lately. Actually, I've been quite busy in the shop and just haven't made the time to update all the recent projects I've got going. Here's a start!

Just got Jon's 650B rando frame back from paint last Mon. Drew took the glamour shots and here they are!

The custom built front rack. It has a threaded boss for the fender mount in front and then two bosses on the side for a nifty LED flashlight mount. This frame and Selena's frame are also unique in that the head tube logo is painted on, as opposed to the decal that I've been using up till now. It allows for more customization of the paint schemes than ever before.

The bottom bracket. That chain stay bridge looks really far back, but with the 450mm chain stays and the 650b tires it's just right. In the bb, I've drilled two holes, one for the cable guide to bolt onto, and a larger one for water drainage.

Kinda basic rear dropouts, but I added stainless faces to the dropout and the fender mounts.

The seat cluster. I usually do a little one sided canti brake stop, but Jon really liked this look. Fab'ed it out of some 4130 rod and a split guide brazed on. Easy to slip the housing out of the stop to release the Mafac Raid brakes that Jon's going to be running.

Like I said, I've been busy. Look for updates on Chad's cool bi-laminate lugged triathlon frame soon and Eduardo's stainless lugged frame which is heading to paint today!

Cheers,

Dave

Selena' frame finished! Eduardo's in process

Selena's frame just shipped out today! Drew's pictures are great, but this scheme is very subtle, it's hard for the pictures to do it justice.

I did a slight point on the seat stay caps and just wrapped them a bit on the lug.

A couple cool shots of the dropouts.

Eduardo's bike is next up, I didn't take any early photos, so here's the front end almost completed. The seat lug, both head lugs and the fork crown are stainless on this, one, so I'll have the seat lug pre polished before I braze the stays on.

Just fitting up the chain stays and figuring out how long the seat stays are gonna be. Also slotted the stays and got them fitted up, so when it's done at polish, I can get the rear end on pretty quickly.

Dropouts and bottom bracket.

Seat and head lugs. Ready to get shiny!

And last, but certainly not least, the results of Stem Fest 2009!

More soon!

Travis' Rando Pics

Here's one of the earliest Ellis', Travis got this one about a year ago and posted pics on his Flickr site here; http://www.flickr.com/syndicalist

If you scroll back, you can check out all the polishing he did to make the finished bike gleam!

Stem Fest 2009!

The Inspector has been taking advantage of these warm autumn days to get in some beauty sleep on the front porch!

Meanwhile, in the shop, a strange double ended stem is taking shape?

I know, I should take more photos of the process, but I get on a roll and I forget. They're starting to look more like real stems below. One is for my old friend Tom, he's been incredibly patient while I built him one stem that ended up having some pitting issues, and now while the replacement comes together. I figured since I'm already building one stem, why not do one for the show bike I'm planning for NAHBS 2010. (The rest of the bike is top secret!) ;-)

Above, finished with 80 grit. Below, all the small pinholes have been filled and they're finished to 380 grit. Ready for chrome! I also found a use for my SRAM Red crank bag, once the crank is on the bike, what the heck else do you use it for?!

Selena's Frame Part 2

I finished up Selena's frame last Friday and it's already off to Jason's for paint. I tried to take some photos of the progression as the different parts of the frame come together.

Firstly, let me begin by saying, this was a fairly small frame, a 48cm c-c. Many times when I was building frames at Serotta and Waterford I felt like we overbuilt small frames. One of the nice things about doing Ellis frames is that I'm really not constrained by a lug or tube set that is "stock", so on this frame I decided to use fairly thin standard gauge tubing for a more proportional ride. (If that makes sense?) Weight wise, the frame ended up at about 3 1/4 lbs.

Above is the frame all fluxed up and ready for tacking.

Here's the progression from freshly brazed, to soaked, to finished seat lug.

I did some small points on the seat stay caps and just wrapped them a bit.

Same progression with the head lugs. I used Henry James lugs on this one for a couple reasons, he makes a pretty nice selection of angles, so I don't end up having to "tweak" the angles much, and the shapes of his lugs are just nice, with very pleasing curves and transitions.

The head lugs really finished up nice, I butted them together since the frame is so small, and added the 10mm head tube extension on top.

Again, a few shots of the bottom bracket. Brazed, soaked and finished.

Finally, the fork and front dropouts.

More Complete Bikes!

More pictures coming in! Chris sent me a link to this picture on his flickr page;
http://www.flickr.com/photos/atemryeats/. Yes, that's my personal 29'er, he contacted me after seeing it at the Cirque and just had to have it. I think it's found a good home!

Below is Henrik's frame, Ellis #1! Finally got me some photos after seeing all the other cool Ellis' on the blog. ;-)