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

Rob's BiLam 29'er

The inspector has returned, and all she has to say is, "what the heck is this crap"?

Well, I'll explain. Rob sent along this picture of his lugged '92 Paramount and asked if I could build a modern lugged 29'er. Not an easy task considering the extreme angles that suspension corrected 29'ers present. On the upside, Rob's a pretty big guy and that helps make some of the angles less problematic.

I decided to go with a standard size seat tube, 28.6mm, externally butted at the top, and then a 31.8mm top tube and 35mm down tube. A set of double bend chain stays and Paragon chain stay mount disk dropouts finishes things off.

I spent a fair amount of time figuring out where to locate the bends and bumps when I built my 29'er last year, so I knew pretty well where to make my cutoffs and bumps for tire and chain ring clearance. I did have to do some work on the chain stay sockets of the bottom bracket shell. It's a road shell, so the sockets are not angled as much as you need. After some subtle persuasion, they came around.

I used some 4130 tubing to make the Bi-Lam lugs. First I mitered the end to match up with my geometry, then I drew my design on the tube and cut it out roughly with a hacksaw. Once I had a manageable sized stub, I tacked it onto the head tube where I could do the final shaping. Below is the head tube with the top and down tube "lugs" attached. I made the down tube lug a little extra long on the bottom to act as a gusset and the forked tangs should distribute the stress outward.

The tube set, lugs and chain stays all ready to be brazed.

A better shot of the bi-lam head and seat lugs.

Once it's finished the Inspector has to have a look! The cable guides are brazed onto the head lugs, reminiscent of Rob's Paramount.

The fillet brazed seat cluster with my custom bent seat stays and bridge.

Paragon dropouts. I'm really liking these!

A shot of all the curvy stays and bridges.

"I guess this one's OK"...

Cheers,

Dave

Jason's BiLam S3 Frame

I haven't fallen into a well, but I have been neglecting the blog a bit lately! Jason, here's your ride, all ready for paint.

Jason's frame uses True Temper's S3 tubeset. The seat tube is round, while the top tube and down tube are pretty heavily shaped. They're also quite thin, and this helps bring Jason's frame in at under 3 1/4 lbs.

Here's a shot of the tubeset and bits all prepared for brazing.

And a shot of the head lugs as I carved them out of a piece of 4130 chromoly.

Frame is all fluxed up and ready to be tacked.

Head tube, brazed and soaked to remove the flux.

The inspector stopped down for a quick look, but she's more interested in sneaking outside now that the weather's nice.

Finished bottom bracket fillets.

Head tube.

Seat cluster prior to attaching the seat stays.

Here you can see the finished seat cluster and the sleeved seat stays with teardrop windows.

Of course, Ellis dropouts.

I normally use a flat crown fork for oversized head tubes, but Jason and I both agreed this one would fit better with the smooth fillets and oversize tubes.

Cheers,

Dave

Carl's Do-it-all Cross Frame

Finally back to work buildin' frames after a long break for NAHBS. Feels good!



First up is Carl's multi purpose cross frame. I went with an old school Columbus SLX tube set and a set of Long Shen's Cinelli copy lugs. We're going for as much functionality as possible, so I used some of my old Campy 1010a dropouts so he can run it single speed or geared and I added a bunch of braze ons to hopefully cover any eventuality!

Here's a shot of those nice Long Shen head lugs, very clean and nice.

The seat cluster area, lots of stuff going on here. You can see the top tube cable routing, (which I don't normally do), a beefy canti brake bridge, and the hidden rack mounts on the inside of the seat stays. What you can't see here is the internal routing for the front derailleur cable. Since Carl was only going to run a front changer infrequently, I routed it under the top tube internally. This way, when it's not being used, you don't have open cable guides except the one on the back of the seat tube.

The seat stays are the only non SLX tubes, I upsized a bit and ran some double tapered 16mm's instead of the 14's that come with an SLX set to better handle the canti brakes and a potential rear rack. I really tapered the caps as well so the stays don't look quite so beefy where they meet the seat lug.

I bumped the chainstays pretty deep for lots of extra tire and fender clearance. You can just spot the boss in the bridge for mounting a fender and the 3rd set of water bottle bosses under the down tube.

Oh yeah, the vintage Campy dropouts. If you look close you can see the pitting from some years of rusting away at the Paramount and later Waterford shop. Saved a pile of these from the dumpster during my Waterford days. A little vinegar and salt soak and they're ready for action!

Cheers!

Caitlin's Finished Bike

I've mentioned before that Caitlin was nice enough to let me hold onto her frame for a couple extra weeks so I could show it at the NAHBS in Richmond. Well, we're back, and she made the trip from Madison on Sat. to pick up her new Ellis. Didn't waste any time getting it built up either! I'm looking forward to a ride report soon.

As you can see, Caitlin has her own version of the Ellis Cycles "Inspector".

Cheers,

Dave

2010 NAHBS Notes

I've had a couple days to recover and I thought I'd try to share some of my impressions of the NAHBS in Richmond. Firstly, a huge thanks to Don Walker for all the time and effort that goes into planning and putting on what has become the premier show for small builders.

I talked to so many people over the 3 days of NAHBS, and got such great feedback on my frames. Folks commented on how clean, simple and classic they looked, and that's exactly what I'm going for every time I start a frame. I'm honored that the judges felt my frame was "Best in Show", but I'm sure there were at least a dozen other frames that could easily have won in it's place.

Another cool part of winning the award was the fact that Patrick, the owner of the winning bike, had flown in from San Francisco the day before to see his new bike and look around the show. I'd never met him in person before, and when he saw his bike for the first time and introduced himself, he was beaming with excitement. This is really what makes building frames on my own worthwhile. Meeting the customers face to face and getting all the feedback on my frames has been amazing. I also got to meet Chad, the owner of the Richard Petty tri bike. He was nice enough to drive it up from NC on Friday morning and then make another trip to pick it up on Sun. He's a heckuva nice guy too and was excited to get some miles in before his first triathlon in a couple weeks. I can't wait to hear how the new Ellis works for him.

I can't end the post without thanking my painter, Jason Sanchez as well. Without his huge effort over the last couple weeks before the show, I might have only had one or two bikes to show instead of the four that finally made it.

And finally, a huge thank you to my wife for putting up me during the weeks leading up to the show and all the stress that comes with it! I really truly couldn't do what I do without her.