Wayne's Road Bike

The new Inspector, Chuckles, keeping an eye on every Ellis!

Wayne wanted a light, unique steel frame, so I unleashed a little bit of lug carving to make this one special. I also went with an XL down tube (34.9mm), along with a standard OS (28.6mm) top and seat tube. This does two things, it allows me to use really thin gauge tubes, but the larger diameter down tube should keep the front end from being too flexy.

Some of the lug carving along the way. I especially like this bottom bracket, it an unusual combination of tube diameters, plus the sockets are deep enough to do a bit more embellishment than most of the other shells out there.

Here's the stainless internal parts that I showed in my last post. The end ferrules and the thin tube that houses the cable are all stainless from now on. The parts are quite a bit more expensive than the what I used to use, so there may be a price increase on the internal cable option soon. But the upside is much greater durability and no corrosion issues.

Fluxed up and ready to braze.

The view down the length of the tube. I always install the internal before building the frame so I can make sure the center section of the internal doesn't contact the tube at all. If it did, the rider would hear a very disconcerting vibration every time they hit a bump! Not good.

Post braze, pre soak.

The fork, complete with Keith Anderson's new TITO front dropouts.

I've been using this crown a bit more recently. On 1 1/8" forks, this makes a nice alternative to the flat lugged crown I've used up till now. I add the stainless washer for the brake mount so paint chipping shouldn't be an issue.

Head tube.

Top tube lug with internal cable routing. Wayne's not a fan a big head tube extensions, so I kept this one to about 5mm. That, plus about 3 degrees of top tube slope add up to a slightly higher head tube without the huge stack of spacers that are so common these days.

Down tube lug with head tube mounted cable guides.

I used my standard Long Shen seat lug, but changed the binder to try a slightly different look.

Of course, the Ellis rear dropouts. I really like the way the stays blend around the windows on this frame.

Dropout, inside face, plenty of little details here too.

Finally, the bottom bracket.

And, the finished product!

Cheers,

Dave