Twins

I built these for two customers that are pals. One lives on the East Coast and the other lives on the West Coast. Both customers wanted the bikes painted identically. The colors and paint scheme were up to me. The only restriction and really it was more of a suggestion was not red because Tom had several red bikes. No problem. I love this blue. If all my bikes were to be painted one color I'd be perfectly happy with this color for a long time.

Front rack

Here's some photos of a recently completed front rack. The frame and fork were done awhile ago but I was waiting for special mounting bolts to come in from Japan. The bolts replace the ones that mount the brake to the pivots. Finally the bolts showed up but they didn't work! Wrong thread pitch on one end. So I made my own. Not a big deal but bummed me out for waiting for these elusive good for nothing bolts. As I'm writing this I'm waiting for the customer to pick this up. I can't wait to see it built up.

Now for something completely different

I finally finished the bi-laminate frame. It's built to be a single speed or converted to a 3 speed Sturmey Archer with a coaster brake. The gear cable is routed internally. The cable enters the down tube near the head tube and exits near the bb shell. The cable goes under the bb shell and enters the chain stay. The cable then exits the side of the chain stay near the rear wheel. I hope I never do that again.

The seat stay arrangement is unusual. This sort of style was done by other builders like Singer and Routens. I doubt I'll do it again but it turned out the way I wanted it to. I like how the seat stay caps wrap part of the top tube. That was sort of a pain but worth it.

The rear drop outs are from Pacenti. The faces are brazed on seperately and are made of stainless steel. The faces will be masked off before paint. I think they're a nice touch. Also the coaster brake plate is made of stainless steel too and will be masked off before paint. The swoopy tube between the seat and chain stay acts as a brace during the braking loads from the coaster brake. The loads aren't that significant so the tube is more decorative than functional. The tube is brass but is quite thick walled so it will be strong enough to actually act as a brace if needed. I used brass because it bent the way I wanted and it was the diameter that would look appropriate.

The fork crown is the same twin plate crowns used on the Masis. It's a pain to work with but it sure lends some mojo to the overall aesthetic. These crowns are quite rare. Definitely not somthing I'll be using too often.

Bi-laminate

Sorry for the lame formatting. Here's some shots early into a build. Combining lugs with fillet brazing is often called bi-laminate construction. At least it is in England. This has never been a common form of joint joinery in the U.S. so I'm not sure if we have a term for it. I like to call it "a little something for everyone!" Heck there's even some tig welding in there. The points have been tig welded on and the weld bead was ground off. Thanks to Erik Noren for welding those on. Tig was necessary because I brazed the lugs and laid the fillets at the same time. Since fillets typically need to be done with brass it made sense to use that for the lugs too. If I had brazed the points onto the lugs beforehand with brass that filler would have melted during the construction. The melt would make the seam between the lug and the added point visible and ugly.

Paint shop is open!

Here's pictures of my first solo paint job. It turned out really well. There's room for improvement but the masking turned out crisp, no runs and the final clear has good gloss. I'm proud of it. The colors are much better in person. The green has a sort of gold pearl effect combined with a candy appearance. I think I'll use that color more.

Computer hiatus

I have a love/hate relationship with computers. This condition goes in streaks and lately I've been hating computers. Hating is too strong a word. Really I've been avoiding dealing with pictures and blogging. These activities so often feel like a waste of time. I know they're not but like so many one person operations sometimes things get pushed to the side for more important tasks.

This randonneuse frame and fork are for Gunner's daughter. He's giving her this as a college graduation gift. Pretty nice gift but I'm biased. I still need to build the front rack for this but I'm going to paint it first. As I'm typing this the drop outs are in the plating bath and will be done soon. After that I'll prep the frame and mask off the nickel for paint. Earlier today I mixed up the epoxy primer and will spray the frame this afternoon. Hopefully I can get a little color on the frame too before I go home tonight. You may have noticed the dragonfly on the down tube. Gunner carved that and asked me if I'd put it on the frame. He explained to me that dragonflies are important to his daughter. At first I wasn't thrilled at the idea. Mostly because I didn't want someone to ask me to carve up something for them. I just don't think I have the talent to do that. Anyway I thought more about the reason for this whole bike being built and realized I needed to get over it. I think it's really cool that the bike is somewhat of a collaboration plus Gunner did a beautiful job. Also my daughter thought it was cool. One should never get in the way of a father's love for his daughter.

3...2...1...blast off!

There it is. The new 15' exhaust stack is up and working perfectly. The duct is 24" in diameter so the rain hat needed to be 36" is diameter to effectively keep out rain and snow. Between this project, funerals and illnesses my time at the bench making frames has been limited this last 2.5 weeks. Yikes! Oh well, that's family life.