Sydney's Bi-Lam Frame

Here's the tubes all laid out for Sydney's new frame. She's a fairly small, light rider, so I'm going with some really light, standard gauge tubing and it'll be bi-laminate to accommodate a sloping top tube.

Starting to work on the top tube lug.

I have to do any lug carving before I cut the top tube socket off, or I'd have no way to hold onto the lug.

A quick shot of the head tube with the bi-lam lug setup.

A close up of the lugs and bits.

Everything is mitered and prepped, ready for the fixture and tacking.

The head tube, post braze. (still hot!)

After a nice soak in the tub!

And finally, after some quality time with the files and emery!

Be back on Wed. with more pics as the rest of the frame gets finished up.

Cheers,

Dave

Alley

This past weekend was a tough one here. While I was on the way to VA for the Cirque, Alley suddenly became quite ill and Lisa was forced to have her put to sleep. She was a great shop companion and friend for many years and she'll be missed greatly.

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

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