"True Temper" and Henry James = Buttery smooth!

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

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??

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...

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

And another 28 seconds of fame...

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

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...

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 :-)

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...