Hand Made Bikes from Orange County California

Here are the Lucid 29r close ups

2010-11-14T13:10:00.001-08:00

Well I finally painted it and got out on a ride yesterday... it is absolute steel perfection! Buttery smooth ride and stiff as I like it to be...

I used a really nice Kustom Shop paint called HotRod Flatz, it is a flat black with a hardener in it so it doesn't need to be clear coated. It is more durable than most paints and clear coats and looks outstanding...
I did my logo and head badge in hot Flatz Red which looks killer, I think I will do a road frame in the red color.
Everything came out looking perfect, I think all the joints are just perfect.
Even though I will most likely only ever run it as a single speed, I put cable guides for gears just in case.

The Stainless Paragon sliders are nice, I used the aluminum drops for a little weight savings.

Ok now to pick up where I left off on Emily's polished lug road frame. I will try and post pics as I go with that.

Christening of the Lucid 29r

2010-11-13T18:23:00.000-08:00

Took me a while but I got it done and painted. I will post more pics of the production and painting along with some good close ups of the joints and what not tomorrow after I take the finished photos... without sounding to biased I think I did a spectacular job! all the joints look perfect.

Mark's Touring Fork...

2010-06-22T09:26:00.001-07:00

This is a fork that Mark called me to build for his new Dean Ti frame. It's a straight leg, lugged touring fork with rack tabs for a custom rack.

Brazing the crown to the steerer...

Still hot!

Look at that nice fillet made by the silver inside the crown sockets...

Legs brazed in... still hot!

drop outs on, with a little clean up around the shores... check out the rack tab brazed on to the drop.

Nice and clean around the shores of the brazed areas... almost ready for paint.

Rack tabs, lined up 6.5 inches up from the drop out tabs.

Nice and straight and clean...

I figured I would skip some of the pictures of the paint steps and jump right to finished paint.

Behold;

Mark wanted it painted black with the lug cut outs painted in silver Titanium and the lug shores pin striped with titanium silver...

I had a lot of fun Building this one and Mark was a great customer to work with, I think he is going to love the ride.

John's 0 degree fork for his Kunstrad bike...

2010-06-10T21:42:00.000-07:00

This was an odd request but I really liked the idea and hope to see photo's of the final bike once John gets the fork.

Very simple really, this is a 0 degree fork... yep no rake at all. It is for a cool single speed Kunstrad bike (will add photo's later)

I have had nice results with this crown and since it needed to be an inch and an eight steerer this was basically our only choice.

I am really glad I came across these straight in drop outs, they look really cool on the fork.

Brazing the steerer to the crown...

scorching hot... Don't Touch!

Still Hot no touchy!

taking a bath to get the flux/glass off...

right out of the tank still wet...

Getting ready to do a test fit, after cutting the legs to size.

Quick loose fit, test fit... looks pretty square.

Checking the square on my new... well new to me, fork jig.

Fluxed and ready to braze.

Still hot, you can see a little scorching but not bad it dissolves off in the water during soaking so just means I got the flux a little to hot...

One of the many bath's the fork takes during the process...

Quickly going to brazing on the drops after the soak...

After a little clean up, here is the test fit... pretty darn straight.

A close up after some light filing and sanding...

Ready for paint after some little sand blasting...

It was hard to see the different stages of paint since the base coat was white and the paint is white. So here is just one shot in the paint "booth"

And a little out door photog...

I really like how these drop outs look... very modern.

little close up of the crown design...

And last but not least my stamp on the steerer "Lucid 6/10/10" #3 fork sold.

Debi's Fork

2010-05-28T21:01:00.001-07:00

Well this was a pretty simple uni-crown fork that Debi asked me to make for her. I used stainless drop out inserts for a polished finish at the drops.

Below is before and after of the drops after removing the rack tabs and brazing on the stainless inserts...

Here are all the parts before assembly and brazing...

The drop outs fitted into the fork legs...

I went through 2 drill bits to finally get the crown drilled for the brake bolt...

here is my home made paint booth, it actually did such a good job I feel like I could paint a whole frame in it... but I think I will come up with a bigger booth for that...

The white above is the direct to metal primer coat... and the black below is the base coat for the deep black finish.

The final coat of black color before the clear coat goes on...

Here is the fork crown after clean up with the clear coat finish and the brake bolt installed...

The drop outs with a polished finish...

And lastly a few shots Debi took of the fork installed on here bike... Looks pretty good. I like the pencil thin fork legs, this fork looks fast!

Debi's mechanic said the fork went on with out a hitch... like it was built for the frame. Well... it actually was built for the frame.

Well I enjoyed making this fork and it looks like I have another one to build for a new customer.

I will update it soon.

Something new and fun...

2010-04-12T20:25:00.000-07:00

I got to do a little frame repair today, well just help out a fellow builder who did some major reinforcement and fix a wishbone crack. The crack was about 3/4 of an inch long and was working its way into the fillet on the down tube/ head tube. He needed me to rebuild the fillet. Here are some pics of his gusset and reinforcement of the top and down tube along with my fillet rebuild.

You can see I had to rebuild the fillet from the bottom of the down tube up around to just inside of the gusset in side that relief hole.
I don't think the crack was any error on the original builder just unfortunately the stress of this kind of design was to much... and Dennis (the welder) did a great job of reinforcing it in the right places. This bike gets a crap load of miles so it will ride nice now.

Too bad about having to trash such a nice paint job, it looked great before we had to remove so much paint and I had to take more off because it blistered as I heated the head tube. But it will look good again once Olympic gets a hold of it.

Alright I have been waiting for this Jig...

2010-03-22T21:05:00.001-07:00

Okay so I know I have been lagging on the updates and photo's but it has been because I have been waiting for this Jig... I had it made based on the Paterek plans by a local machinist.

It makes aligning and tacking the rear stays so much easier...

A little close up of the quick clean up on the chain stays, I kind of like this look...

I left the inside of the stays hollow for access to spray in Frame saver and vent holes...

I am working on the fork tonight so I will update with pictures of that next.

29er is getting started...

2010-01-31T19:50:00.001-08:00

Well I am finally getting started on the 29er, I am using 29er specific tubing as well as a fork tube set specifically for 29er wheel size...

Here are the tubes of the trade, talk about beefy... a 35mm diameter down tube is huge!

Oh and I bet you noticed the "420mm seat tube" yeah I admit it was kind of on purpose... and no it's not a stoner thing... it is my birthday.

I have been dreaming about these Paragon sliding drop outs for months, they are absolutely beautiful and I got the no hanger single speed drop out as well for future conversion.

Check out those beefy fork legs, they are huge with 19.5mm tips for drop outs... thankfully Henry James had just the drop outs for them.

Can't get much tighter miters than this... did I just say "tighter miters"? I guess I am a poet and didn't know it :0)

Fits like a glove!

More "tight miters"

Not a lick of light peaking through this miter... if you are wondering what the heck I am talking about... well the miter needs to be as perfect a fit as possible. Basically I shouldn't be able to see any spaces or light showing through where the seat tube meets the Bottom Bracket... and these suckers are so tight I could basically super glue this frame together!

More to come through out the week.

"True Temper" and Henry James = Buttery smooth!

2009-12-28T21:14:00.000-08:00

Here is the latest Road frame, this is a "True Temper" double butted tubed with henry James drop outs.

I did the paint and clear coat myself in my shop, I used Auto Air water based paint its a translucent blue over an Aluminum base. Giving it a really cool metallic almost anodized finish, the clear coat turns it into a really loud blue metallic with lots of POP!

I just came up with this head badge while I was painting it... I think I may have found my head badge design.

Straight as a razor blade!

Double whammy with the fillet brazed frame and also a uni-crown fork, not easy to build but fun and gives it a nice look and ridiculously strong.

The fillets around the BB shell came out pretty nice.

I like the round oval round chain stays, also gives a good platform for the "Handmade..." logo

I am still diggin the Rosewood font for my downtube text.

I will post some build pics pretty soon, so stay tuned.

Nich's Fork

2009-12-21T07:22:00.000-08:00

Nich found me through my Ebay store and order this lugged fork that I was selling as an add on to my fixie frame.

This will be a straight leg fork at 45 degree rake in the crown.

minutes after brazing.

After soaking in hot water and a little wire brushing to get a couple little black soot spots off.

Looking in the cavity of the crown you can see the nice fillet the silver makes around the sockets. This means this fork crown is now one single piece with the steerer tube, the two pieces of steel are complete bonded together.

After some quick filing and sanding clean up, cleaned up the little spots of silver left on the steerer.

About to braze the legs into the crown, the clamps are only holding the points of the crown sockets with light pressure. This is to make sure there are not gaps so the silver does not have to fill in or build up to bond the socket points onto the fork legs.

After soaking the crown and drop outs, I am sanding and filing every thing now.

Nice smooth steerer integration after a little filing, It looks like one piece now.

A little more sanding and it will be ready for paint...

I do all my own painting now so I though I will show a little of the process, this a direct to metal base coat. Its thick enough to sand and smooth for the next base coat layer...

Since the fork will be black, this is a black base coat. It makes the semi opaque black color seem very deep and rich with black.

One more coat of black base after this and it will be ready for the color...

After the final coat of black I did a silver highlight inside the sockets. It's hard to see here but I also added just a little metallic silver very lightly sprayed over the black to give it a little more depth and sparkle... it adds a cool effect you can see in the final pics.

This is the finished with clear coat fork, you can start to see how rich and deep the black is...

Look close and you can start to see the sparkle of the metallic silver over the black.

In the sun the metallic silver really makes it shine and adds depth.

Well all in all this was a fun little job, Nich really liked it and hopefully he gets to ride it soon if the new twins don't mind him taking a break from daddyhood.

Wow... where have I been??

2009-12-09T20:40:00.000-08:00

Well I know it's been a while since I posted but here is one of the latest frames I have built (and sold)

Its a Fixie frame, Fillet brazed (after lots of practice on the side) and a lugged fork.

Sayin bye bye to old school scoot...

2009-05-06T13:23:00.001-07:00

My scoot... it's about to go bye bye and be replaced with a hot I... talian thang;

And another 28 seconds of fame...

2009-03-05T15:27:00.000-08:00

Wow if only I were getting paid for this like the "actress"... oh wait I am getting paid for this :)

Um...Hum... did you see that pose my little blue handmade was sporting? Just like a runway model, shiny, white and blue... sportin plenty O' carbon oh yeah!

I should of worked in distribution rights and merchandising kickbacks... damn they always take advantage of the pretty ones!

Check it out, my hand made bike being used in a training video

2009-03-05T15:18:00.000-08:00

Well I made the big time (my bike that is) in the debut training video from Serfas... not only does it get some serious camera time but it has major supporting role!

Have a look and see if you spot my little blue handmade...

Yeah how is that for 49 seconds of fame!

NAHBS 2009 a few pictures and words...

2009-03-03T13:00:00.000-08:00

Well I was able to make it out to Indiana for 1 day of the show and it sounds like I picked the right day because it wasn't overly busy on Friday while I was there. But some of the other sites like BRAIN and Velonews had photo's that show Saturday and Sunday packed!

I was there more on business than pleasure so I attended a few seminars, the 1st one was Carl Strong's "don't quit your day job, and other myths of becoming a professional builder" it was very informative and he kept it light and easy to follow.

He did asnwer some great questions which I already had a good idea of how I want things to go... it seems I am on the same path as he was 16 years ago.

I also attended a Reynolds "stength vs stiffness" seminar... it wasn't bad if you are into statistical information... which I am.

The last one I attended was "so you wanna instal decals...?" I was very pleased with this one as it gave me a much better understanding of logo's and installing them on frames. It is much easier than I thought and not as expensive as I expected.

I hope to work something out for my logo soon so I can get an order together before I finish my next frame.

Here are a few shots I took of the show and some interesting styles that caught my eye....they are hi-res photo's so click on them for close up views.

That's Dave Wages of Ellis Cycles on the left in the tie, I really like his style and eye for detail. He had an outstanding Stainless rear triangle on the bike on top in front, I didn't get a chance to get a close up.

He was sitting next to me at the Carl Strong Seminar... I think he was making Carl nervous.

The entrance into wonderland...

The main Isle, that is the SRAM booth on the left with a cross bike from Richard Sachs and then Sachs booth is the next one over.

These are the super cool Ereksen seat posts that are all Ti and unubtainably expensive! but I have seen a design lug builders that uses the same clamp and looks just as good.

Nice urban commuter set up.

There were a few people that braved the 30 something temps, it was actually so warm in the convention hall it felt good to walk outside for a little bit.

I have been a long time fan of curved seat stays and top tubes, this Retrotec frame does a good job if keeping to a nice clean line from head tube to rear drops. I would like to play around with this style frame build someday

That's a really nice arc... it just looks fast and agile to me.

Nother Retrotec with a coupler and I am digging the colors.

Carl Strong's booth... it says a lot when he can display a Ti frame completely unpainted and Raw right next to a hot Black piece of steel.

I noticed a few more people rode their bikes to the show as I was going to lunch... I would guess this whole hall way was full on Saturday and Sunday.

This is a nice display of some nic nacs from Paragon Machine, I was interested in the bottle openers but those breezer style drops sure are making me interested in trying those on for size.

I wanted to get alot more pics but I ran out of time and it was hard to get good shots, I noticed this by walking in and out of many other people's shot (purely by accident)

I look forward to the day I display my wares at these shows (if they even exist when I finally "go pro")

Well I will probably start on my next road frame this weekend so I will start posting pictures of that process soon but I have to go to Taipei later this month for a week (The Taipei Bike Show) so it will a slow process getting this next frame started.

Okay, Okay I will post some final pictures :-)

2009-02-20T08:29:00.000-08:00

Well I have put another 200 miles on it and it rides like a dream, I will most likely do my logo's as stickers on it soon or airbrush the logo's on...

Don't get to excited about the seat, it is a prototype and I have already taken it off.

Powder coat is awesome... it really makes things look a lot better than they are...

I going to need to think about my cable routing again because this looks good but it still bumps my leg.

Same with this cable route it sits to far out from the head set and makes the cable sit funky...

I still plan to start another frame soon but I am waiting till after NAHBS because I might be able to find some good deals on stuff there or just more creative ideas and what not...

Built up and ridden 50 miles...

2009-01-26T08:20:00.000-08:00

Well here it is, I am very proud of my 1st build. It rides super smooth and stiff (like I like it) I will need to get a Surly tug nut so the wheel won't slip and because I don't want to tighten the rear skewer so much that I can't open it out on the road.
I am taking it in for powder coat today and should have it back next week.

1 x 10 gears work great... it's a 50 tooth chain ring. I will report later on how it does for longer hilly rides. I centered the ring by mounting it on the inside of the spider so I can go through all 10 gears with very little chain alignment stress at the 25t

Not a real clear photo but it looks pretty good for a 1st timer.

I decided to build a new fork over the weekend and didn't take the time to shoot pictures during the process. But here are a couple close ups of the finished fork; I really like these Ritchey crowns from www.bikelugs.com they are cheap and pretty light weight. It's an internal plug style crown (to match the drop outs) I had a hard time figuring out how to do the brazing but after a few issues with one drop out I worked out all the kinks.

Basically I drilled vent holes on top and bottom of the legs then a feed holes just at the top of where the plugs are inside the leg. That helped make sure my silver was going all the way up and around the plugs, I even fed enough silver for the drill hole to fill in on itself (not the vent holes though).

The crown was much easier because it is easier to control the heat and take my time, I fed a lot of silver in there so I am more than positive there is a nice fillet inside. The nice thing about this style crown and drop is it takes all of about 20 minutes to clean and finish the brazing joins.

The only issue I really had was bending the legs to match each other, these were the 1st set I bent and they look OK but there is a very small lump (almost like a kink) on one leg. The issue was keeping them from twisting while bending each one... I had a pair that twisted inward and looked horrible when mounted so I scraped them. Also it is hard to get the radius I wanted and to match both legs but I got pretty close after scraping the second set and I am confident the next fork (which I will probably start on this week) will be much better.

I am very proud of the brake bridge, it looks great.

The seat stay tops are OK after lots and filing and shaping but I think I will be a lot more careful on the next build to align them right and make sure the fillets match.

Since the bottom bracket was one of the 1st things I brazed, it leaves a lot to be desired. But the good thing is by the time I got to the chain stays I was pretty comfortable with brazing, and they look much better than the ST and DT.

I am pretty satisfied with the rear dropouts but I will do them a little different on the next one to keep them looking uniform and cleaner.

The internal cable runs came out pretty clean, but there is lots of room for improvement. I will also need to adjust my placements because this one just slightly touches my leg while peddling.

But I still really dig the look and style of internals so I will focus on getting better at placement and brazing them.

The cable routing is just a little funky around the head tube so I will confront that on the next build but it doesn't affect performance and I have seen mutch worse on some higher end frames.

It's ridable!

2009-01-21T09:30:00.000-08:00

So I finished the frame and fork this weekend and before I do the finishing touches for powder coat I built it up for a few rides.
The frame rides like a dream and since this is the first custom built frame I have ever ridden I notice some big differences between this and my last road frame (Ridley Excalibur carbon race machine)
1) since I speced the tubes for a 190 Lbs rider (me) it is stiff and buttery all at the same time... that's good since the Excalibur was pretty stiff and this feels much stiffer.
2) It's been a long time since I have ridden a steel fork and I don't think I have ever ridden a lugged steel fork. It rides really smooth and once agains seems stiff and yet very buttery on the little road vibration and bumps.

All in all I am very happy with myself on this one and I can't wait to get it powder coated and then see my logo on it.

The only thing I did wrong was built the fork to use long arm caliper brakes so my Dura ace brakes are too short so I am going to pull the drops and shorten the legs by about 1cm. My next frame will use the longer dimensions but I will use canti brakes instead so I can run a cross set up on that one.

I will post some pictures this weekend of the bike built (unpainted) but I am out of town for the next couple days so it may be Monday before I get them up.

Braze-on time!

2009-01-15T08:18:00.000-08:00

I did a few different things last night: brazed in the bottle bosses, brazed on the cable stop for the rear derailuer and pulled the right seatstay drop to straighten out the wheel in the rear triangle.

So my previous "New" method of brazing is working well. But you can see here I overheated the flux just a little but it still wiped right off with a wet rag.

This is after I had heated the seat stay/drop joint and pulled it. I ended up having to pull it about 2 mm to get the wheel straight at the brake bridge within 1mm of center. I ended up having to turn the frame over and try and get all the silver to go back down in the joint because it all came flowing out when I pulled on it.

The cable stop for the rear derailuer, I was kind of practicing a fillet (it is really hard with 56% silver) it came out pretty well.

This is the other set of bottle bosses on the DT after wiping off the flux, you can see I didn't over heat anything and I just got a little silver build up on one tip. These were a lot easier than I thought they would be.
I also bored the seat tube for a 27.2 post and cut the slit in the seat clamp, I didn't do that great of a job on that so I might key hole it to clean it up. I also taped and faced the BB with my new Ice toolz kit... man it is nice having my own set of tapping and facing tools.
I may not be able to do much on it for the next couple days but saturday I plan on cleaning everything up and possibly building it up for a ride! cross your fingers.

much better now...

2009-01-14T12:56:00.001-08:00

So as I mentioned yesterday I completely screwed up my brake bridge so I went home and just removed it and started over.
I had this other bridge so I decided to make a better jig that holds everything in place while brazing. I also did some research and realized my off center wheel is not to hard to fix so I centered this bridge and will fix the right drop out tonight.
This was the best brazing I have done by far, I really focused on not over heating the flux and working the torch away when it came up to temp. Originally I would heat up the area then stick the silver in between the torch and the area to braze, that lead to over heating and usually to much silver. So this time I heated the joint then moved the flame away and dab the silver at the join, it would take a little silver and then I would roll the flame in to add a little more. This worked well as you can see I didn't overheat the joint ever and I was able to just scrub off the flux with a wet towel after the joint cooled.
I can't wait to put this to the test tonight on the braze on cable guide and the bottle bosses.

Just cleaned the flux off.

About 5 to 10 minutes of filing and it looks great!

I will finish sand it later this week once I have all the brazing done and alignment all checked. Then I have the seat clamp to finish and sand everything... then I can build it up for a few rides before I paint it.

New Fork built and disaster with the brake bridge...

2009-01-13T07:56:00.000-08:00

After making a paper weight out of the 1st fork I decided to rebuild it instead of just leaving it, so I reheated and pulled the fork legs and cleaned and preped the crown for a new set. On this one istead of using outside plug drop outs I am using the standard drop to match the rear drop outs.

This time around I went way farther with the my measuring, alignment and prep of the fork legs. Trying really hard to make sure everything is going to be straight and square, the pictures below show a little of my new process.

You can see the center line of the leg so I will be able to align it with the crown.

Nice and straight and ready to be brazed...

This is after a quick soak to remove the flux, I used some some brass brazing rod that came with my 1st map gas kit... it works pretty well.

After some quick filing, I tried a little different cut on the fork end. I am still messing around with fork end cuts to see how they look after filing and how hard it is to clean and finish. This style is a pain because I have to get in with the dremel where as the straight solid angle I did on the rear drops is all file and very little dremel work, which is cheaper and quicker.

This is after the dremel work and using the abrasive wheels that cost 2 bucks a pop and they only last long enough to finishe one or two lugs... Expensive!

If you look close in this picture you can see the old fork leg I pulled out sitting there , I will probably cut it open to look at my brazing.

I am checking to see if a jig idea will work here, it ended up being a great way to do the fork (next picture) I have decided to not build big bulky complex jigs but ones that I can peice together and won't take to long to set up.

The setup here was quick and almost to easy, I am checking every angle for square and level. You can see I have a nice square flat piece of steel with a center line on it, the v-blocks are centered on that sto make a nice straight line for the rest of the jig.

Now checking for the crown to be level and square, after this I inserted the fork legs with a dummy axle and pulled the angles from the drawing to make sure I will have the correct rake angle.

Once I had everything set up and checked many times for square and straight I fluxed the crown to tack it into place.

After I tacked them into place I pulled it out and put it in the vice vertically to make it much easier to braze. It ended up being almost perfect with a wheel in it after I was done brazing, I will have some pictures of the filing later.

Now for the brake bridge, even though I thought I had it straight and square... it wasn't.

You can see here that I had some marks on the stays to make sure it was in place but once I started brazing it all went wrong. The jig didn't hold the piece in place so it ended up being low on the left side and poorly brazed. So last night I reheated and removed it, I will have some pictures tomorrow of that and how the new brake bridge looks.

Wow this is getting fun...

2009-01-12T08:00:00.000-08:00

Well I got a lot done this weekend, I finished the rear triangle and a new fork as well as getting started on the brake bridge (more on that tomorrow)

Above is my jig to keep the rear triangle in place while I tack it and cut and prep the seat stays.

This basic jig made it easy to lay the frame on the drawing and pull the alignment measurements up off the drawing.

getting ready to cut the seat stays

almost done with the filing.

finish filed

Here is the seat stay fitted and almost ready to braze.

Both Seat stays ready for brazing, but next is the seat stay ends at the top tube

Both Seat stays cut to length

Fitting the cap to the seat stay.

So while I was brazing the cap to the seat stay I tacked the chain stays in place... not the greatest tack but it worked.

After brazing the cap and a little triming on the grinder.

Just about to file it down.

Fitted up after filing and sanding... they aren't perfectly square but I am happy with it.

You can see in this picture the left cap is just a little bit bigger than the right... that is haunting me now.

Now I am brazing up the rear triangle after a few checks to the drawing for accuracy and to make sure I have the right BB drop.

Well after all the overly simple jigs and what not the rear triangle came out pretty straight and square, I had one slight mistake. It seems that the rear wheel is just slightly out of square so the by about a mm at the rim. So the brake bridge is going to be slightly off center but I will see what i can do.

I will have more pictures of the new fork and brake bridge tomorrow.

Now for the rear triangle... again!

2009-01-06T09:29:00.000-08:00

Ok so I am taking my time with the rear because I want it to be dead straight... so after plenty of measuring and checking I cut the chain stays down to fit them for the miter tracing;

This is the tracing of the inside miter cut and a line of the lug point for reference when I check the fit.

The dremel rough cut.

After breaking off the rough cut.

Getting ready to file.

After a quick file, you can see I need to shape the points of the miter a little more and then it will be done.

Now it is a good fit that will not interfere with the BB threads, although I will still need to cut the threads to shape a little with my new BB tap and chase tools.

Here they are all mitered and fitted for the next step of jiging them up to get everything nice and square.

I will be working on the jig tonight to get this ready for brazing.

Getting closer...

2009-01-06T09:25:00.000-08:00

So I took a few pictures of the front triangle to show how far I am;

The Bottom Bracket is looking good, am waiting to clean it up after I braze in the chain stays.

I am pretty happy with the brake cable internal routing.

I think I am pretty happy with it so far, I know there is a lot I can do better on the next one but this isn't bad.

Let's try this again... shall we

2008-12-22T08:52:00.000-08:00

Ok so I screwed up the 1st set of chain stays by cutting them to short... it was kind of fate anyway because the 1st set wasn't as high quality as I want. So I ordered the correct flux to use with my bronze rods and below are the pictures of my brazing steps.
By the way I also just bought an oxy/acetylene set up on craigslist that was a great deal and it is so much easier to use than the MAP gas setup.

All fitted up and ready for flux...

Getting ready to braze...

Wow that went so much better than the last time, I couldn't see that there was a bubble and not enough bronz in the joint so I needed to go back and dump a little more bronz in there.

Ah much better, I built much more of a filet inside the joint and this thing is solid!

These are presoak brazed...

After about 30 minutes of soaking... almost clean.

This is after about 15 minutes of filing and sanding... looks pretty good

I am especially proud of this joint, there are no voids, no extra bronz anywhere and once I sanded it down it looks great.

So this is basically the finished joint, I will finish it after I have done the seat stays and brazed it into the BB.

I realized I haven't put any pictures of the cleaned up front triangle yet so I will post some those tomorrow.

Starting slowly...

2008-12-19T10:08:00.001-08:00

Well I got my order from Nova with the new chain stays and fork blades so I started on the chain stays last night. I am taking this a good bit slower than I did previously and I am really seeing a difference in my filing ability and knowing exactly how I want to approach this stage.

These pics are after I have found the true center line with V-blocks and the machinist square, then I made a nice flat/square cut of the tip with a tube cutter (big help here) and then made my alignment marks bigger and more representative of what I want it to look like. I am sinking the drops in about 8mm deep so the main black mark is 7mm deep for the hack saw cut.

You can see I used a small knife blade file to start my cuts

The cuts with the hack saw are hard to keep straight but I have plenty of room to straighten everything out with a file.

Initial filing, I will work down to the hash mark with the file and get it nice and square.

The initial fit is very nice, no slop and nice and straight and square to the center line of the stays.

Trying a little design cut, I like this look better than the tapered cut I did previously.

Finished with the non drive side cuts and filing.

This is the cog side of the drive side stay, I have a little clean up to do on it but this is with a taper for the cassette to have as much clearance as possible.

I am really proud of how these stays are starting to look, I think I did a much better job of cutting and filing these to look nice once they are brazed. I am confident that I will be able to braze them in nicely without burning the drops like last time.

I hope to have the rear triangle done this week end and then finish up the braze ons next week... and maybe build it up to ride next weekend. I plan on building it up before painting and get a few rides so I know that it is ready to truely be finished then.

minor set back...

2008-12-16T08:35:00.000-08:00

Taking measurements for the chainstays to cut and miter;

Well I cut them to short by about 1 centimeter! DOH! well I had to do an order with Nova anyway so instead of using these and having to let the air out of the tire to install the wheel I will try it again with new stays. I will probably recycle these for a later bike with a steeper seat tube angle.

I am really looking forward to finishing this frame possibly this weekend so I can build it up and ride it. I think I will get it powder coated instead of trying to paint it myself because I want to improve my building skills before I start on paint skills.

I ordered the tubes and lugs for my next frame from Henry James yesterday and will get started on that over the Christmas holiday break. It is going to be a Road/Cross frame so I can go for road rides and hit some of the local fire road trails as well.

2008-12-11T14:17:00.001-08:00

Well it has been about 2 weeks since I have even touched the frame... Thanksgiving then shoulder surgery has benched me. I am chompin at the bit to get back at it but I think it will be another week before I can.

Front triangle is done... mostly

2008-11-26T08:31:00.000-08:00

Well I got a little discouraged last weekend... I thought I had the fork all jigged and straight but once I was done brazing and cleaned it up it was WAY off. I am not sure if I will try and fix it by reheating and taking the legs off, or just hang it on the wall as a reminder that anything can and will go wrong if I am not careful.
But I motivated myself to take my time and finish up the front triangle, I feel I am getting the feel for heat and being able to read the metal (even though the pictures don't show that). Last night I finished up a point on the head tube/top tube that didn't fill all the way in, but I realized how to recognize the metal temp and when it is approaching a critical temp... it's a cool feeling to know where that over heat line is and how close I am to it.

The seat clamp was a long preheat but I kept it pretty clean so I won't have too much extra clean up.

You can see here that the flux burned a little but it isn't as bad as it looks... I think it is more on the surface of the flux because it washed right off... but I have had a little more practice this week and I am way more comfortable with the temps.

The cable braze-ons were interesting because they moved just slightly which took them out of alignment but I am ok with it. My wife couldn't even see that they are out of alignment so I figured that is a good sign.

This week end I might be able to work a little on the rear triangle... but we will see.

Now for the fun part...

2008-11-17T14:27:00.001-08:00

This was really exciting and absolutely scary as hell all at the same time... I decided even thought this is my first frame I wanted to do some nicer detail touches. So internal cable routing is one of them along with some other braze-on goodies.

After looking at some other builders designs and learning from what I could see in their production photo's I new to use internal brass tubing and braze in these ferels. I decided that I will try to do an internal fillet because there are some little gaps to fill since the angel of the ferels doesn't match the tubing cut/mitter very well. As you can see I loaded up the silver... I think it is either because I couldn't tell that the hole was filled or if the silver expanded a little after it cooled.

*** A side note*** take a look at the head tube... yeah it was the worst of all my joints because I wanted to make sure there was silver going into the mitter... but I also got some gaps in weird places... so I had to go back reheat and add silver... wow that is ugly!

So here I started to cut off the excess ferel to open up the inlet for the cable housing... I was very nervous because I really didn't know whatto expect.

More grinding and taking my time at that!

So after some filing and triming of the inside... it doesn't look to bad?

Well this was well worth the experience because I am more than happy with the outcome, even though the holes aren't the same size or length they do match up well enough that I will put braze-on internal cable covers and it will look spectacular. Don't get me wrong I want to leave these open because with paint on them you would barely be able to notice the the slight alingment issue... but with brased on covers over the holes I will be able to align them perfectly and symetrically. I will work on a way to match the holes up so they will be able to be left un covered to give a cleaner look.

I really wish I could get a shot if the internal fillet, it came out really nice.

I definately learned alot with this round of brazing, I also feel that filling gaps with 56% silver is much easier than working with brass rod. and I will really focus on taking my time in heating and watching the temps on the next round of brazing as well as keeping the silver in the right place. I did a little reading online and figured out a few things I was doing wrong and to help keep everything much cleaner. I eventually want to be able to braze well enough to just clear coat a frame and showoff the seams.

the ugly brazing...

2008-11-17T14:15:00.000-08:00

So following the Paterek building plan I brazed the drop outs... even though they look pretty bad here the drops look pretty good with the basic clean up below.

The rear drops wen't pretty bad but I did recover from it pretty easily... I decided since I had large gaps to fill I would try using brass rod instead of silver... the one thing I forgot was the flux I had is for silver... so as you can see below I cook the flux pretty bad, I will know better next time.

the front drops after some basic clean up... I will use the dremel to clean out the little triangle on the lugs.

The black tar is actual hard as a rock and hard to remove...

After lots of dremel work they came out pretty decent... I will know what not to do next time. Even though it looks like I had to grind on the tubes... I didn't that is just file marks.

I wanted to show what the jig looks like...

2008-11-17T14:03:00.000-08:00

So here are a few pictures of the home made jig to hold the bottom bracket to the seat tube and then the Head tube to the down tube.

Pretty simple; I used a 4 foot section of 1/4" angle steel, clamped it in the vice nice and square and plumb. Then set up a couple steel angle plates (used for fence building or joist anchors) clamped square then a long threaded bar (left long to use for the head tube when the front triangle is set up) with a hole saw cut in half acting as the BB cup/holder. and a v-block to keep everything as square as possible. It helped to stay on track with Patereks manual without spending money and time of fixtures.

Here you see the head tube/ down tube fluxed and ready to braze in the fixture... the fixture head up very well to brazing and I set it up to be as open as possible.

I didn't take any pictures yet of the head tube/ down toube after brazing but I will tell you that was the hardest so far and I had to go back and dump more silver in it to make look better. But I got good penetration and it stayed pretty plum and square.

Now for the Bottom Bracket to Seat tube

2008-11-17T13:48:00.000-08:00

I fluxed all the joints that I was planning to braze at the same time, so same as before I still didn't flux far enough away from the joint to keep down the discoloration. I came up with a Jig that requires no machining and just clamps together and uses bolts for leveling. I will be able to use this jig for most of the sub assembly and rear triangle.

Below you will see I didn't do to bad with this joint almost all the way around got good silver penetration and I only overheated area that were very thin or not properly coated... not bad I would say I am getting better but I now what the next 5 joints already look like...

I definately realized why Richard Sachs puts so much flux on and coats every single part that will even get closed to heat... it aids in less clean up and keeps the metal in better condition.

Here I did some quick clean up after dinner and it looks pretty good... except the lobe of the lug between the chain stays... it got penetration but left a little gap at the tube and tip...

So I went back and reheated the tip of this lug and dumped way to much silver in it... but it still cleaned up pretty well.

Next is the head tube/ down tube...

The first brazing experience... starting with the fork crown

2008-11-17T13:21:00.000-08:00

So I started my first brazing... it's amazing how much I learned from reading and watching video's on youtube. I started by fluxing the joint and holding it in a vice for the brazing.

As you can see below I overheated the crown a little and didn't cover far enough away from the joint to keep the steel from discoloring. Beleive it or not this joint came out perfect with only a couple little spots of excess silver.

Now onto the fixturing and brazing of the BB/ST and HT/DT...

Getting close to the first couple brazing joins...

2008-11-14T09:15:00.000-08:00

Last night I worked on the fork; cut it to length by taking about 2 inchs off the upper leg and about a half inch of the lower leg. comparing it to a really tight carbon race fork, it will have about a 1/4 inch more room between tire and crown all the way around the tire. I prefer this fit incase I want to ever put fenders on (they would still need to be speed fenders as I am not putting eyelet braze-ons on)

I also mitered the steerer tube to fit the profile of the crown but I will still need to file off about 2mm once I am done brazing.

After lining everything up my big concern here is making sure the legs are parrallel to each other after brazing because they both rock back and forth a little bit. I am think of pinning them and then tack brazing then first to insure as little movement as possible. I also need to come up with a couple C clamps to hold the tips of the lugs flat to the tubes for brazing.

More to come after tonight because I will be brazing tonight and tomorrow... I will get lots of pictures of that.

I'm Mitering (moving right along) now!

2008-11-12T07:55:00.000-08:00

So this is moving fast now, Last night I was able to clean up the bottom bracket to just leave a little sanding and mineral spirits cleaning for brazing. And I have to admit I was very nervous about mitering the down tube/head tube joint, I was very cautious in starting and it ended up taking me about an hour to miter this cut and get it to fit flush to the head tube.
I admit I really thought I screwed up when I did my 1st test fit because it was way off, with frustration starting I sat back and assessed the problem. Luckily for me my engineering aptitude (that everyone always says I have) kicked in and I realized that the "waist" or side peaks were way to high slightly misshapen. So I filed them down just a little to see if I was right... yup that was it.

Once I got a nice clean fit, I filed and checked, filed and checked, and filed and checked again. But I couldn't get that fit of absolutely no light shinning through? So I sat back and read a little bit and pondered how serious I need to be with this fit. So I decided to reshape it a little more and see what different filing will do, I fugured when I read so many builders blogs about making sure no light is shining through at these joints then I had better take this serious.
So another 15 minutes of filing I came up with this fit below. It could be better but I feel it falls into the criteria that Tim (Paterek) instructs in the manual and many other builders strive for in their blogs.

Once I was satisfied with the miter I nervously checked the fit between the head tube/down tube and the bottom bracket/down tube... it is so close to the drawing that once I braze these together the BB facing and cuting tool will just barely nick a piece of the tube when it is doing it's thing. You can see in the pictures below how clean the fits are.
Now I basically just have to cut the fork blades (straight legs with plug in drops) and prepare it for brazing as well as prep what Tim calls the subassembly with mineral spirits and some sanding.
Not sure if I will braze this week or hold it for friday night and saturday because I won't have much time tonight and tomorrow night because that is Hannah and me time.

I will be using pins to keep the frame aligned because I don't have much in the way of fixturing so for this frame I will clamp everything on V-blocks (seen in the picture above) and then pin the HT/DT for brazing and then pin the BB/ST for brazing to follow the Paterek build up.

If anyone has any suggestions on pining or clamping feel free to let me know...

Now I can start prepping the lugs...

2008-11-10T11:42:00.000-08:00

Well I got the tubing set I ordered from Novacycles.com it is a basic Dedaccia Crmo OS package with lugs and bottom bracket. I think it is a perfect blend of price and set up for a beginning builder... meaning if I screw it up it won't hurt so bad in the wallet.

After ogling the tubes and lugs I decided to get started on boring out the lugs to fit the tubes with the recommended "slopy fit". After eating my lunch sitting on the garage steps and thinking about all the things that could go wrong here... I took a few deep breaths and got started.

in the photo's you will see the lugs clamped in the vice, I used a dremel to grind out the sockets (typically needed to take off about .001 of an inch to make the tubes even enter the socket. The 1st lug (the lower head lug) took me about 1.5 hours just to grind out enough to fit the tube with the slightly sloppy fit. I learned qucikly how easy it is to snag or spin the grinder outside of the working area on the lug (see the two grind marks on the point in the vice).

The next lug was the top tube/head lug and I tried a couple different bits on the dremel and found that the sand paper bit works best for removing more material (but the stone shoots lots of sparks for the dramatic effect) it only took me about an hour on this one.

Not pictured is the seat lug and bottom bracket, I ended up doing them on Sunday evening and was able to bore and finish the outsides in under 2 hours.

I think everything fits pretty well and I have the right "sloppy fit" I need for silver brazing. Tonight I will start mittering the tubes which I think will be a more tedious process but we will see.

The 1st weekend of shop work...

2008-11-10T10:50:00.000-08:00

Ok I got started this weekend on the intial prep of the Lugs for my frame, by the way I am building a custom geometry road racing frame. I typically ride race frame geometry and have been very happy with it even on centuries.

Even though I am of the average size road frame geometry user I figured I will try a little custom sizing for myself. I am working with a combination of the "Paterek method" and using the free BikeCAD program for my figures and measurements.

As I was already expecting... you don't just jump right into grinding and welding the tubs together. From the short time I worked with my dad in a machine shop I already new that preperation of tooling, work area and material is the most time consuming part of metal fabrication.

So first I had to fabricate a safe way of holding the lugs while I grind and file them... I would have just bought a "mandrel" but they are around $300 from a machine shop/ frame building tool company. So I figured a little homemade mendrel will work if I am careful (see 1st photo below) made from some brass pipe, a center bolt for compression and some grease to keep it from sticking... I know it looks a little like something a caveman would build but surprisingly it works really well.

Next I had to come up with a decent way to hold the thin wall tubes for mittering... after looking online i realized I could just make it out of some hardwood blocks and the drill press (seephot#2) I haven't started to use it yet but it will work just fine... of course after making it I noticed in the Paterek manual he mentioned just using a Park repair stand clamp for safe tube holding. Duh... I can't believe I didn't think of that!

The last thing I finished up on Friday night was the drafting of the frame design and measurements. I kept this simple and just taped some drafting paper to the table and drew it out according to the Paterek manual and a website I found called ivycycles.com that has a nice little tutorial on drafting a bike frame. (see the last few photo's)

The battle ground is set...

2008-11-10T09:41:00.000-08:00

After a solid month of researching and trying to talk myself out of this project, I have built up a nice little work area in the garage. So from now on I will refer to the garage work area as the "Shop".
Keeping my tools to a minimum of basic hand tools and just a drill press, along with a vice, metal work table, dremel, files and some basic drafting utensiles I am trying not to spend much money. I did underestimate the key tool... the brazing torch and gas tanks.
I don't know if it is just here in California but it is EXPENSIVE to use a brazing torch set up. After combing various pawn shops, welding supply stores and the all mighty internet. I could not find a torch setup (not just the torch and hose... I need tanks, regulators, a few torch heads, flint striker and goggles)for less than an initial cost of about $450. Or renting everything would add up to about the same after only 3 days of rental fees.
That is just to much of an investment for me... so I decided to buy a Oxy/mapp torch set from Sears. I know, I know I read all the debates on the framebuilders forum and most people don't outwardly scoff at a Mapp gas setup, but I know that the Acetelyne torch setup is the prefered method for speed and accuracy.
I ordered the Paterek manual from Tim's website, I have to say I was surprised at how thurough it is at walking the reader through every step of the process. Without imparting to many confusing directions or opinions, I have been able to read a chapter and then set it down and start working without having to refer back to it every 10 minutes.
Now the fun begins!