Exhausting Weekend
So Friday, I got home from the office around 2:30 p.m. I immediately plopped down and ordered up Peggle for the PS3, which has been a total joy. One of my favorite features on this thing is that I can take a replay and automatically upload it to YouTube, as evidenced by the mother of all blind-luck shots that I took on Friday at the end of one board:
Kate arrived home around the time I was finishing with the last board in the "Adventure" mode. She played for a bit and then we headed over to the Red Dragon.
It is flat-out impossible to leave that place and not have a hangover the next morning. Our table of 15 people ran up a $500 tab in only a few hours. A good time was had, as always. And Josh, Jumi's boyfriend, offloaded some of his old welding supplies on me, which is awesome. Torch and a set of small oxy-acetylene tanks. Rawk!
We got home, we did stuff, and we went to sleep.
Saturday morning, I woke up with a IQ-dampening, but not suicide-inducing, hangover. I had some fluids, chatted with Johnny Surprise on GChat, and then I got my shit together and headed off to Frostbike. I had a pretty good time there, met a lot of cool industry people, and saw some really cool stuff. I've got a write-up forthcoming, and will probably post it tomorrow, after I've had a chance to test out some of the sample products I received.
Hit up Target briefly on the way home, and when I arrived, Kate was still asleep(!). She finally got up around 3 p.m. We lounged on the couch together for a bit. My new copy of the Paterek Manual arrived, and I wound up reading a large portion of that. I looked up, it was 11:30, and I decided that I had missed enough of the Cutters Ball where it would be better to go to bed and save the energy for Sunday's framebuilding session up at Paul's place.
Framebuilding went well, as it always does. Paul was making his final preparations for NAHBS, so I stayed out of the way as much as possible and accomplished the following:
- The 29'er received some finishing work in the HT/DT fillet. There's a low spot I need to drop some 56% silver into next time so that I can finish that.
- The commuter bike got blueprinted, and I finished the shaping of the BB lug. Then the seat tube was mitered and brazed into the BB shell, the steerer tube and fork crown brazed, and I raked the fork blades and started slotting them for the dropouts.
- The pursuit frame didn't get much attention -- all I did was silver braze the stainless dropout faces onto the rear dropouts.
After the hour-long drive back to the Cities, Kate dragged me out grocery shopping, after which I passed out on the couch.
This morning before work, I got some work done on the WP template I'm going to use to make the Pallas Athena Bicycles site, read some blogs, and found a possible new site template for this blog.
My weekends are more exhausting than my work weeks.
New Bike Project
The tubeset for my pursuit frame.
From left to right: the aero down tube, the aero wheel-wrapping seat tube, the top tube (which I will be ovalizing), the bottom bracket shell, the head tube, and the chainstays (which I will also be ovalizing). I've also got a pair of chainstays (Columbus MAX) that Paul is hooking me up with. So it'll be a mix of those with some True Temper Platinum OX and Verus HT. Also, not pictured are the rear dropouts, which are Pacenti MkIII track drops with stainless faces.
I've already got a good chunk of the parts needed to build this sucker up -- I just need a crankset, headset (integrated), fork, and wheels.
Color scheme: going with a basic white frame, with BC04 Stratto Blue panels from House of Kolor. Subject to change.
Framebuilding Update
No class this weekend, and I don't have another framebuilding session until Sunday the 21st. The 29'er is approaching completion, and the lugged commuter/touring frame is underway. The tubeset for the single-speed 'cross frame is still untouched (which is okay). There's also a tubeset for a track pursuit frame on a UPS truck somewhere.
Met with a painter last night, and it looks like I'll be doing business with him. Hoping to have that 29'er frame in front of him in the next 4-6 weeks and the lugged commuter not long thereafter.
Yesterday, I found a source for 316 stainless tubing, in the thickness and ID that I need. Looks like the raised metal downtube logos are still going to happen.
Today, I'm hoping to finish the head badge design and get the HTML portion of the website done.
Tomorrow, I need to swing by a small local print shop that I found online and see if they can do print masks for me (cut adhesive vinyl). And get a price quote.
Saturday Plans
- 90 minutes on stationary trainer (morning), with audiobook.
- Clean office.
- Clean out car.
Lunch with future in-laws, trip to Uncle Hugo's.- Visit with possible future painter for my bike frames.
- Gym for weight training (evening).
Not a very productive day so far.
Framebuilding To-Do List
find a source for 1.5" and 1.25" OD, 14 gauge stainless steel tubing, 316 alloy-- DONE- get the head badge artwork finalized and sent to manufacturer
call local painter about biz arrangements-- DONE- find local printer than can do vinyl stickers for paint masking
- finish website
order parts from Henry James today -- new track frame project-- DONE
Class Accomplishments
- Slotted the chainstays for both the commuter frame and the 29'er frame. The dropouts fit nicely.
- Silver-brazed the steerer tube into the fork crown for the commuter.
- Started carving up a fresh, new BB lug for the commuter, including TIG welding shut the ugly-assed vent holes on the bottom of it.
- Ground my left thumb into hamburger against a wire brush wheel. Painful, interesting and fun.
No new pictures this week. As part of a special request, I am going to try to shoot some video so I can pull together a HOWTO on fillet brazing.
Next session:
- Blueprint the commuter/touring frame.
- Finish the fork for the commuter/touring frame.
- Attach chainstays to 29'er.
- Work on 29'er fork.
Friday Framebuilding Post
As you read this, I'm headed up to Princeton for my framebuilding class.1 It's awesome -- I have a day in which I get to do some heavy thinking (the job does that sometimes), and then I get leave early to go get my hands dirty, working on a frame. Whether that's the 29'er, or the start of the lugged commuter frame, I don't yet know. The BB lug I've been working on isn't ready yet, and I'm not entirely happy with the way it's turning out. I may talk to Paul about getting a fresh one from him and working on that tonight. He's got stuff to prep for for NAHBS, and if I'm out of his way concentrating on that and mitering the seat tube, we'll both be productive as hell.
So I've been contemplating how to pay for getting my own framebuilding infrastructure and space set up. The thing is, I don't know how the hell I'm going to raise the money, or find the space to work in. I've considered trying the P2P financing route and taking pre-orders from select people to help pay for the stuff I need to get moving on this.
The future of this is fairly hazy. Ideally, I'd like to spend the rest of 2010 getting good at this -- build a half-dozen frames or so -- and finding a space/infrastructure to work in. After that, who knows?
Things I'd like to do after this year: start showing at NAHBS. Start building titanium frames.
1. One of my favorite features on Wordpress is to schedule publication of an entry for the future.
Progress Made
She's coming right along. And I've actually been thinking that I may run a 29'er set up as a "super 'cross" for the aforementioned Almanzo 100.
Progress. More to come as things develop.
So far we have the headtube, downtube, BB, and seat tube joined up. Everything is within .1mm of where it should be. (Yes, 1/10th of one millimeter.) It's coming together nicely.
I ordered up new disc brake tabs for it last week from Paragon Machineworks, which look like this:
Willits style tabs. Image borrowed from Paragon Machineworks.
Much better-looking than the chunky ones that are readily available everywhere.
I've got a paint style picked out -- think "tuxedo cat" -- gloss black, with a white panel on the downtube, and white tips on the fork, and rear dropouts. There's some more special details coming -- it is, after all, something of a tribute to my cat, Mooch, who passed away last summer.
Speaking of paint, I need to get out and find a regular painter until I'm in a facility that has its own booth. I'll probably put together an RFP and see what people can quote me before selecting one.
The sketches of the head tube badge are off with a local artist for conversion to a set of vector graphics. I'll use that on the website and on business collateral materials, plus it'll be the basis for building the 3D model that I'll have cast to make the actual head tube badges.
Truckin' right along.
Miter, Measure, Braze, Measure, Repeat
We're moving right along with the first frameset. The bottom bracket and seat tube are stuck together, and the BB shell (eccentric) is drilled out and has binder bolts affixed. I don't have any pictures of that, currently.
This weekend, I did attach the head tube and down tube to one another.
The head tube and down tube joined together, covered with flux and ready for brazing.
Look at that sexy join. That's a hand-filed miter, kids. And the opposite side is just as tight. That's a file, a protactor, and a lot of frigging patience. But you know what? I love doing it, and I think hand-filing is the way to go. I don't think I'll ever bother milling -- not even when I start working in titanium.*
The final braze of the HT/DT joint. Still needs filing and finishing, but that comes later.
So yeah. It's been going pretty good so far. That's the end result of the brazing shown there. I was quick enough and careful enough with my heat where it didn't pull when it cooled unevenly, and the end result is that the angle is spot-on. It's not at the stage where I need to file/finish the joint yet. That happens when the frame finally comes together completely.
Also done this last weekend: dissection of a steel tandem frame that was rusting from the inside out. It was a very enlightening view of the need for large, well-done vent holes and the need to clean leftover silver flux (corrosive) out of the frame.
During the week this week, I need to take an inventory of the parts I have so I can figure out what I still need to order to finish the build. I think all I need at this point are the hubs and headset (Chris King for both), and that should be it. I also need to track down a painter. There are a couple of options here in the Twin Cities, so I can figure something out.
Next week, I'll be joining the down tube to the bottom bracket/seat tube combo, and time permitting, I'll be sticking a top tube in there, too, and drilling out the holes for the cable routing.
* Probably not until late 2011.
The Joy of Permanence
It's Monday and all I can think about is Wednesday. Not because of its traditional role as Hump Day™, but because I've got a day of framebuilding work again. And I cannot tell you how damn excited I am about that.
Class is going extremely well. I am getting more and more comfortable with the fillet brazing process, and have started to dabble in silver brazing of lugs, too. I find myself daydreaming up all sorts of nifty ideas from both an engineering standpoint and a creative standpoint.
The best part about this is the permanence of the things I am building.
You see, since 1994, a majority of my creative energies have been directed toward building castles out of electrons and pushing ideas through the Internet. Whether that's fonts or web design, what I have been building lacks a material instance.
What I'm doing now, with constructing bicycle frames, has sparked a level of passion for my work that I haven't experienced in the fifteen years I've been putting stuff on the web. And I think that that is due in large part to the fact that the things that I create, provided that the owner treats them with some modicum of care and provides a certain level of care, will still be around in 50 years.
I like that idea. I like the idea that someday something I build will be a family heirloom, or that it will be picked up at a flea market by a kid who wants to break into racing but doesn't have the budget. I like knowing that my future kids might well inherit bikes I built and raced on.
Do I think that every bike will pass down through the ages? Hell no. If you've worked in a bike shop as long as I have (10 seasons), you've seen countless bikes that end up in dumpsters, or that have been destroyed by the ravages of time and use. But, for every one of those, I see ten come through that have been re-purposed and are finding new life, and that gives me hope that I might build something that outlasts me.
That's something that a loose assemblage of electrons will never do.
(Next topic: the joy of creating for "someone" rather than for "everyone"...)
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Mmmm. Thunderstorm. [fontosaurus]
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I'm at 3M Center- Building 225 (3M Center, Building 225, St. Paul). [fontosaurus]
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Checked in at 3M Center- Building 225
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Willing to bet money that we sign LaDainian Tomlinson today. #Vikings [fontosaurus]
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At my first NBA game. [fontosaurus]
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T-wolves/Nuggets (@ Target Center w/ 11 others) [fontosaurus]
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Checked in at Target Center
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Wants Battlefield: Bad Company 2.
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Kickin it in the bar. (@ The Westin Minneapolis) http://4sq.com/91urJg [fontosaurus]
