Built up and ridden 50 miles...

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.