Stephen's Rando frame

As you can see, I went ahead and built the fork first. Steve's opted to use a Nitto M12, so I wanted to make sure my fork length work with the rack and if needed I could adjust the frame drawing accordingly.

Next order of business is getting the chainstays built. I've slotted and ground the chainstay ends the way I like them and hacked off the lower of the 2 eyelets on my dropouts. Steve only needs one for a fender strut attachment. All the washers are for the dropout faces, the derailleur hanger face and the eyelet faces.

Here you can see the finished product with all the washers brazed on and cleaned up.

I like the look of Ricard Sachs' Rene Singer lugset for rando bikes. Here I'm cleaning up the edges and points of the down tube lug.

All the lugs are prepped and the frame is ready for the fixture.

It's a big one ladies and gentlemen! 62cm c-c.

Down tube lug, tacked.

Post braze.

Bottom bracket, tacked...

and brazed!

I soaked the frame last night, more pics soon as it progresses.

Cheers,

Dave

Smoked Out!

For those of you who haven't visited, Velocipede Salon is a forum to discuss all things cycling related and a few things not so related! Over the past few months I've been contributing photos on the Friday Night Lights section of the forum where framebuilders are encouraged to show photos of finished bikes or work in progress.

A few weeks ago though, Richard Sachs came up with an idea for sharing a bit more info about the hundred or so members of the Salon who list themselves as either full, part time or just hobbyist framebuilders. So far they've featured 7 other builders and now it's my turn. Check it out at; http://www.velocipedesalon.com/forum/content.php?27

I've got a brief history of my development as a builder, and then anyone can post questions or comments related to my post or others in the thread. It's a great way to learn more about us builders and if you've got questions, jump in!

Cheers,
Dave


p.s. Smoked Out has even been noticed by Bill Strickland of Bicycling Magazine. Check out his blog post here; http://bicycling.com/blogs/sittingin/2010/05/07/meet-your-makers/

Mike's Road Frame

The last week as been pretty busy. My folks came in for a visit on Mon. and I tried to juggle work and doing some fun stuff with them as well.



We returned last night from Horicon Marsh Bird Festival. While Lisa and I are rather casual bird watchers, my parents are becoming quite the experts with many trips to bird watching spots all over the world. A couple of the highlights of this weekend were seeing a Whooping Crane and a Glossy Ibis.

OK, now back to business. I got as much work done on Mike's frame as I could this past week, so here's the progress. I'm finally back to a "normal" lugged frame, and while I enjoy the bi-laminate bikes, it's nice to get back to lugs. Mike has already decided that he wants his frame to be painted exactly like Kevin's black road frame with just a white panel on the down tube. It'll be a very clean, classic bike with a level top tube. He did opt for the internal top tube cable routing which you can see if you look closely below.

Not too many process photos, here's the head lugs after brazing and finishing. I added a 10mm head tube extension on top.

The Ellis dropouts with the seat stays dry fitted.

Finally, the whole frame with the stays mitered and dry fit. Not too much left to do, just braze the seat stays, add all the small bits and finish!

Cheers,
Dave