Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Ellis #3

Well, I've been busy the last few days working on my own frame. I got my dropouts last Friday and set to work putting it all together. Here's a shot of the dropouts fresh from the cutter.

I have to give a special thanks to Scott M. for the CAD work he did, nice job translating my pencil sketch into the final product.
I didn't take many process photos, but here's one of the chain stays prepared for brazing. I carefully filed down a groove in the drive side dropout for internal cable routing.










Here's the finished dropouts. If you look closely, you can see the recessed hole for the derailleur housing. Don't worry, it has a brass tube running inside the chain stay to guide the cable. I've worked on enough old bikes without this feature to know what a pain routing the cables can be.






Here's the other end of the internal routing. The cables will run along the down tube and only be internal for the chain stay. The brass tube pops into the chain stay just past the threads on the BB shell and runs all the way to the dropout stop.




The seat lug, doesn't look much like it did out of the box, but very minimal and smooth. Just ahead the internal brake cable exiting the top tube.










The lower head lug...












...and the upper head lug. I'm excited to get it painted and ready to ride, I've been riding my cross bike with road tires in the mean time since all my other Waterford's have been sold to finance the business.












Monday, April 7, 2008

Stem for the fixie

Well, the last couple weeks have been kinda slow waiting for parts and the new fixture. The fixture showed up last week Wednesday and it is Sweet! Thanks to Don and the guys at Anvil, you make a damn nice piece of equipment.
I got the stem kit in today for the stainless fixie I built a couple weeks ago. I cut the stem lugs to match, here's a few photos of the process.

The front lug tacked up.



Brazed.













Post bath, pre-finish.












Finished













The steerer lug brazed.














Finished stem.














Laid out on a fine shop rag.