Shop Dog Cycles - Road Build Chronical

[Michael Gordon]

Ok, I'm not even sure where to begin...

My last post was back in July, and I had estimated it was about day 10 of my evenings back at the bench after work. All of the work up until that point had been going quite smooth, but a few things have happened since.

First, my brother wanted his camera back. A very nice Nikon DSLR, but even more important were the lenses and the articulating flash on top. The latter are back on loan.

Second, my jig for the chain stays was off somewhere ! Although I thought I was in good shape, I inserted a wheel in the frame after the seat stays were on (I did it before too) and the wheel... well... it just wasn't quite straight. This wasn't an issue with my previous frame using this jig, because that frame was built with horizontal dropouts with adjustment screws. That frame rides as straight as can be. Despite what I tried to do to fix the situation, the proper fix that I ended up with was replacing the chain stay. We're all straight now! Checked, double checked, triple check and checked a few more times before brazing. Forgive me for the lack of pictures of that debacle.

Here is the finished frame, already to go off to paint...

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[Rody]

Right on Michael, you probably learned more replacing this single stay than many will learn fitting pipes together in a year with no issues. Own it and recover, well done!

[Ben Hudson]

Nice thread. You've given me a lot to think about for my own basic setup...

[duanedr]

Despite what I tried to do to fix the situation, the proper fix that I ended up with was replacing the chain stay.

My last frame, a MTB for my son to get to school on, was coming together without a major hitch until I got the chainstays in. With no serious errors to this point, I was thinking the Frame Building Gods were smiling down on me.

The one small issue, somewhat expected, was the chainstays had closed up a bit from brazing so the spacing was ~130 instead of 135. I was using the tall, thin 30x17 chainstays to give a bit of extra clearance at the tire without dimpling. When I tried to gently cold set them, I got to 132. Then on my second pull, I apparently wasn't gentle enough and completely kinked the tube in the middle. I was too embarrassed to take pics. The image is only in my mind. I nearly cried. I un-brazed the thing from the socket, cut and filed the Breezer DO off (had good internal fillet there!) and took another shot at it. It's all fine now but, Rody has it right, I learned a lot that day.

None of my prior 3 builds have been without mistakes so, I'm not suffering from the poor learning opportunities alluded to in Rody's scenario. I like to consider my garage a 'Learning Rich Environment'

I was only able to recover because of the great advice on this board. Thank you all

[rauce]

Big fan of this thread, gave me a lot of ideas that have informed my own process and will continue to do so!

If I may ask, what's your set up for forks?

[Michael Gordon]

Own it and recover!

Rody, since you liked my last one, this one is for you and ATMO...

Ross, here's my fork setup, with another lesson for the books...

Lets start with bending the blades. here is my bender. It started with a nice thick chunk of oak from the hard woods store. I cut it with a 12" diameter (more on that later), then cut a half round groove into it on the shaper. I used two lengths of steel stock from Home Depot as my lever, with another chunk of oak to ride the top edge of the fork blade and I pull down on it. I've seen other threads where people use polyurethane rollers for this, which I kind of like the idea of a little bit better, but this works and it did not cost me anything.
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I originally tired to hold down the tip of the fork blade with a three-edge clamp, but this bent right up on my first test bend. That quickly got replaced with a heavier duty c-clamp.
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The other issue I had with my original design, was that no matter how much I tightened the vice, it was not clamped tight enough to for the amount of force required to bend a fork blade. I've seen other fork blade benders that get bolted down to the table or clamp in-line with the vice, as compared to mine which is perpendicular to the vice. I didn't want to redesign the whole thing, so I got creative.
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First I removed the vice jaws.
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Next, with the bender in the vice, I drove four screws into the bender through the holes that hold the vice jaws.
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Clamped tightly in place, the screws keep the bender from slipping when I bend the blades.
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Bent up, and ready to realize what I did wrong...
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[Michael Gordon]

I timed out while editing my post. Here is the bit the end that did not make it...

This bender works perfectly, and did not cost much at all to make. The problem was the radius of the bender at 12". I used a large radius, because I wanted a more gentle arc to the fork blade, rather than a really sharp bend. This worked just fine for a tab style dropout where I had more flexibility with the angle at which the dropout came out of the fork tip. For this build I am using Richard's Piccoli Gioielli plug style dropouts. With the radius of my bend, I could not the tips nice and square to plugs. I kept bending and bending until I thought I had it, then realized I would have to cut too much off of the fork tip and the fit of the plug would be way too loose. These blades were bent way to far to try going back as much as I would have needed too.

To keep the build on track, I called Mr. Sachs and had him bend and send me a new pair of blades. Thanks ATMO!

I'll recut my bender at a later date. If anyone has suggestions on a good cut radius, I'm all ears.

I'll post the brazing sequence later.

[Michael Gordon]

Fork Final Assembly...

First the fork was all fitted up, and the dropouts were brazed into the blades. I did this as a sub-assembly, because it is much easier to clean the dropouts up before the blades are brazed into the crown.

Next, fit into my 8020 jig. I ran out of time on mill I had access to, so some of the bits of my jig are made out of wood. When I get back to the mill, these pieces will be made out of AL.
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All fluxed up and ready to go!
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Post Braze
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Cleaned up
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This is one of my favorite details
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[Michael Gordon]

Off to paint!
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[Rody]

Off to paint!

Wha, Wha, What???

You've only completed half the work...not gonna paint it yourself?

r

[Michael Gordon]

Wha, Wha, What???

You've only completed half the work...not gonna paint it yourself?

r

Ouch! Now that hurts... All in good fun. That's why I love this place.

At this point my personal paint resources are pretty much limited to a can of spray paint, and my paint abilities don't extend much further than that. Paint will come at some point, but for now I've to keep focus.

Give me some cred, I do make the fork to match.

More pics as soon as I can. My buddy with the spray booth works about as fast as I do.

[Michael Gordon]

This one is going back to paint. We sprayed it with matte clear, which we found to be a very thin and fragile finish. Any suggestions for laying down a more durable matte finish?

We are thinking about spraying with a standard gloss clear, which will have better filling properties for areas around the graphics and stripes, sanding smooth, then laying down the final matte clear on top.

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[Curt Goodrich]

Flat clear is always the final coating. Especially since you can't cut&buff flat clear without making it glossy.

[Mark Walberg]

....The other issue I had with my original design, was that no matter how much I tightened the vice, it was not clamped tight enough to for the amount of force required to bend a fork blade....

I have a 9 inch radius bender that works well.
The way I keep the bender still while bending is this:
Lay the bender sideways on the concrete driveway,.
Then drive the car on top of the bender, pinning the bender between the tire and the concrete.
Best to use a back wheel. Front wheel doesn't hold still so well. (If you use the front, then you need a second person to hold the steering wheel tight.)

Clearly, this won't work with your steel bender arms.
Instead, I use a 4 foot cast iron pipe.
Put one end of the pipe under the wood block, and put a loop of bicycle chain around the pipe and the fork blade, then pull until done.

[classtimesailer]

Instead, I use a 4 foot cast iron pipe.
Put one end of the pipe under the wood block, and put a loop of bicycle chain around the pipe and the fork blade, then pull until done.

Do you have picture of this set up.

[Paul Jacobs]

I'll recut my bender at a later date. If anyone has suggestions on a good cut radius, I'm all ears

I am too. My bender has a 10 inch radius and, while it works fine, aesthetically I prefer a shorter tighter curve to achieve the same rake/offset. DSC01000red (2).JPGI will just have to find time to make another instead of making do with what I have, so I am happy for any advice. This is what 10 inch radius looks like when used to increase the rake from 30mm to 45mm on a pre bent fork blade.

[Michael Gordon]

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[jgoran]

New to this thread, thanks for posting!

What ended up being your clearcoat solution?

[Michael Gordon]

What ended up being your clearcoat solution?[/QUOTE]

My painter did some touch up, then re-sprayed it with another type of clear that had some better building and flow properties to it. I believe he referred to it as a medium clear. I'm not a painter, so I may be butchering the terminology.

The ultimate decision for me has been to not do anymore matte frames. The main reason for this, is that I find you cannot clean them without doing a full soapy wash with a hose and lots of water to rinse it down. If you try to spot clean a matte frame with a spray bottle and a rag, I find that the dirt (or grease even worse) just gets smeared into the finish. Gloss is much easier, and I like the way it looks a lot more.