Back to the drawing board....in a good way!

Oy, spent the better part of the last two nights drawing out seatstays....NEED to have full spec drawings for this one because I am likely going to bend again. Using beefier seatstays (19mm) so the angle is a little narrow to miter it's diameter to hit the seatstay radii (sp?). Not to mention, I think a little more mud clearance would be good.....going straight would only allow ~10mm or so on either side. That's not much mud. Could easily increase that by 50% or more with the arc I have on my bender. Anyway, multiple drawing up, some mock ups done, test bend complete. Now just need to pull the angles from the drawing and get some bending and mitering done. ONWARD>

trippin'

Photo catch up…Turkey Time was indeed a good time. Got a good piece in the shop to do the final fitup of the chainstays, and finish the jig extension on my frame jig that I figured out. Sanctuary

Of course there were some edits to be made all freestyle style

Ghetto chainstay jig up...

Prototyping the jig out….

Barlow remains largely nonplussed

ONWARD

Turkey & Time

4 days off of work (and maybe a little more on the day before Thanksgiving….shhhh), nowhere to go, floods outside, overhead, whatever. My shop is my ship. Time. On the horizon. Baby needs some love.

Rollin.....

Had a great night in the shop last night, went late, but very satisfying....built out my chainstay jig, and did some fine tuning in filing the miter joints to fit nice and tight and ready for fire. Whew! Worked. Also, I got my hands on the FREE PRO PARK STAND from Finnegan's backyard after Halloween festivities wrapped up the other night. Another late night, but last night I got the chance to throw my frame jig up on it and man, what a difference. Now I don't have to fight for access to my drawers in my rollaround tool chest, AND I get my sweet vise back in use for other purposes....THANKS FINN! I took pictures, but had to go straight to bed when I wrapped up last night in a fog of Nag Champa and epic tunes from KBOO. two thumbs up for the BOO! Oh yeah, and Dan, the wheel fits like a glove.....gonna be MURDER. Onward.

LIfe….

Crazy days lately, on all fronts. But rain is falling again, washing down the streets, the gullies, and piling the leaves and the summer crumbs where they can be collected or swept aside. At least Gigi and MasterBlaster remain smitten with each other….

Been collecting some doo-dad parts and tools I need to jerry rig my frame jig to nail into place Dan's chainstays for tacking to weld. Had to spend tonight doing some mods to the extrusions I'll use…drilling through holes, marking out where I will cut the lengths down, etc.

Needing to drill some aluminum….super mushy shit after punching through Ti…..I wonder about that stuff….suspiciously cool shade of grey……

Long live the counterpunch….what genius invented that?

Spent a good hour…maybe more fixturing Dan's frame back into my jig and aligning the angles (in the good words of Janis Joplin, Lord won't you buy me, a Mercedes Benz, or if not, an Anvil Journeyman? Used is fine…) The good news? The jig remained on the money. Hitting angles to the half degree.

I need to stop going to Hillsboro every day. Please. Someone dump some gold bars and peanut butter Snickers down my chimney. I need some time to get awesome. Back to the task tomorrow night. High Five's at Halloweener.

Gearing up for victory or bust...

Spent the night last night trying several different ways of getting the chainstays aligned to the dropouts and BB in my jig for welding this weekend. Still not 100% satisfied that my scheme will work....but I came up with a plan to try and attack it. Need to source some more aluminum extrusion bars to bolt onto my frame jig around PDX somewhere so that I can fake a chainstay jig with some creative clamping. Otherwise, got the rest of my argon breather holes drilled into the frame, and did some fine tuning on my chainstay miters with my files. Fitup is critical since I will be being creative with my workholding method. The heat will pull the stays out of alignment when I get to welding. Going to have some solid blocks of time this weekend to do some work. Need to dominate! Sorry no pictures Dan. Late night, nothing exciting to take pictures of....stay the course brother!

Monday Quarterback

Monday night's activity…chainstays per Dan's request this weekend over a couple of Hammerheads. First, must prepare to Swallow The Sun…..thanks ROBO

Trying to stay tight to tolerances with no jig…yipes!

Mellow bendy crotch shot...

Colorway…total rough mock up on printer paper, but I think it will turn out quite nice as you prescribed. Always go with your gut. And yes, the blue tape will be replaced with METAL.

Finished drilling breather holes into those Ti Dropouts….THICK. Took about 40 min to drill two holes…Need lasers. That's all I got. Till Tomorrow Night. Hasta.

Chainstays On My Mind

Well, it appears that Blogger is letting me post again…not sure why it was giving me hell…probably lambasting for latent posts… Anyway, here's some catch up. Nice curves, mitered down to the drop outs.

Wish I had a jig….oh well!

Drilling holes in nice dropouts….gas must pass.

BB miters next. Gonna be close on one of the stays, not much meat to play with…one of those countless "I'll never do that again" moments that happen on the first bike. ;) But I'll pull it out.

Mojo rising...

Spent many daylight hours yesterday in peace (amazing....) working through the math and the layout, machining and fit up of the chainstays. Difficult cut to align into the drawing because of the odd geometry of the Paragon sliders. But finally last night I cracked it and got both sides cut to the drop out profiles. The bends are gonna be nice. Also got my frame jig dialed in for BB drop, and the modified chainstay lengths to account for the dropouts. All set. Need to figure out how to cheat a jig that will hold the stays in phase while I tack them in....let alone, cut out the bottom bracket. The checklist is set, and gets shorter all the time. More pics soon...

Mojo

Summer escapes, as it always does. Cross is here. Have to get my mojo back. Crunch time. That is all. Period.

The Trials Of Birth

Oh, how summer has smacked me in the face, and right at the time that I needed the most concentration….been staring down the two leftover peeled back edges on the front triangle for what feels like a year.  Finally set down to one this weekend and closed it nicely.  Took forever…good practice.  The next and final one will be trickier….hotter joint, tight, a little wider.  Good practice.  gulp…

Here's one of the joints early on that was going pretty swell….still that faint ghosting around the zone, but, meh.

Here's a repaired "hole".  Dammit.

Head stand….

Finding Phase on some sweet bent stays…..one of these days will have a sweet jig for this….

Anyway, good stuff.  Progress is on Dan.  The clock is seriously ticking, yes, but I am close to being over the cliff…. 

Brick by brick….

She's indeed coming together Dan…moved into phase #X whereby holes were drilled through a perfectly good Ti Head Tube…

 Jig is fitted up in mastery perched atop my old school Snap-On tool box roll around…

Nice fit….thanks for doing that 3 months ago Jace…
I'm actually half way round these joints now…finishing up in the morning over coffee...

Now how are we gonna miter these? hmmm…math time.

Indiscriminate Nozzle Failures

Ok, Dan, I took one more late night practice run with my kludged together torch gas lens late the other night with pretty decent, but still not right, results. I did some forensics and tracked down the guy who made the gas lens in his shop back in Michigan and convinced him to take two of my conversion collets and solder a stainless tube on them for me to use with his gas lens. Nice guy, agreed to do it, he should get them in his mailbox today.

This is a long story to say that I'm through fighting my funky setup (and burning a lot of Ti in the process). It's a murky world full of tribal knowledge and details when you are talking about welding. I'm getting mine. Fingers crossed that we'll be in business when I get those back next week.

Duhhhhhh......

Sometimes one can be ones own worst enemy. But on the positive side, it is the primary mode through which we LEARN.....fighting our own ignorance in the process.

Or just, duhhhhhhhhhh......

56 Green Lights.....2/27/12....

Last night I rolled away from my Jones Farm office and proceeded to pedal home at full tilt and hit every traffic light green all the way home, with the exception of one light, right in front of Dante's downtown, but it was just really a roll to stop and then a green...but I have to be honest. Been trying to have this happen for years...something always cancels it out. Now it is done. By my count, it was 56 traffic lights lit up big green.....

NE 25th and Evergreen (Hillsboro Airport) – Green
Evergreen and Dawson Creek (Solarworld) – Green
Evergreen and Brookwood – Green
Evergreen and NW 235th – Green
Evergreen and Ronler Acres – Green
Evergreen and 229th – Green
Evergreen and Cornelius Pass Road – Green
Evergreen and NW Alocleck – Green
Evergreen and 196th – Green
Stucki and Cornell – Green
Amberglen Parkway and Walker – Green
Walker and 185th – Green
Walker and 173rd – Green
Walker and Schendel – Green
Walker and 158th – Green
Walker and Nike – Green
Walker and Murray – Green
Park Way and Cedar Hills – Green
Skyline – Green
Goose Hollow – Green
Columbia and 14/13/12/11/10/9/8/7/6/5/4th – Green
4th and Jefferson/Madison/Main/Salmon/Taylor/Yamhill/Morrison/Alder/Washington/Stark/Oak/Burnside – Green
Burnside and 3rd – 5 second standstill
Burnside and 2nd – Green
Burnside and MLK/Grand/6/7/8/9/10/11/12th – Green
74th and Glisan – Green
74th and Halsey – Green
HOME
99.9% FLOW

Punch the Clock

It has begun. Production run #001 is underway. Here's a commemorative "first bead" on Dan's seat tube insert…a break in to calm my nerves.



And we made it round the bend….not the sexiest ever, but some demons were exorcised in this little starter run.



And straight out of the forge, Dan, here is the first assembly of your ride. Hope this gets you through your Monday...



Squared up, and waiting for the next phase.



Nerves are shot. Going to bed.

onward.

Made it round the bend...

Take #2 on the final approach practice welds last night was a success....a little hairy in one spot, but it all worked out. I'm getting ready to burn Dan's bike now. Watch out.

Photo Catch Up

So, Dan, I know you have your hands full with a bombed out kitchen….so, here is some respite to your worries. I'll catch up with some pictures….had a good session last night on those 2 last practice joints. One down, one to go, and if I'm satisfied, going to start on your frame with fire.

Vise Mount. Nothing is more user friendly in the shop like a good vise. This is bolted into my old roll around Snap On tool chest that Dan found me at a garage sale by his house. Works great!



The Shop Zone…my refuge.



Here are the 2 last practice joints post acetone bath, awaiting their coupling.



Starting to understand the horsepower and flow of my machine….joints are coming in much better.



All is well on the turn….



On tap………delivery date, 2012….;)



The two greatest forces in nature are time, and pressure. They yield amazing results. I feel them both.

go

Much going on behind the silence....

I know that Dan's been after me to post up some more photos of progress....but "progress" in this case is just a bunch of rigorous practice sessions I've been having while listening to a varied array of late night metal. Last night was a good one....I finally got most of the surface features of my welds to disappear....something that has been haunting my sleep for weeks. Still not happy with my consistancy of heat and uniformity of bead around the joint, but really, those are just details that will surely not be perfected in time for Dan's delivery. So, I think I am going to put a stake in the ground now, and say that after 2 more practice joints, it's go time. Come what may.

3 day weekend this weekend....could be timely.

ONWARD

He said mount....

Last night was itching to weld, but still out of Argon....so, instead I went medieval on my rolling tool chest and punched 1/2" holes through the steel plate on it's top so that I could (FINALLY) mount my nice vice to it.

So nice to wake up in the morning and walk by something like that being D.O.N.E.

Wonder if I can get Lori to drive to Airgas.....

Bent Sunday

Spent the weekend test welding again….until I exhausted my Argon supply again…time for big boy tanks. Back on the fire by midweek. I have a few modifications I am ready to try and then I think I am at least brave enough to hit Dan's bike.

Here are some test miters getting to know each other in the cleaning zone….



Nice fit…Gigi's miters (so far) are flawlessly tight….from the outside of the screw in…other way around? I think about a thou to 2 of extra soft backlash.



And Dan? If you are reading this….meet your new hand bent chain stays….wasn't planning on that working out tonight, but Finnegan was upstairs watching Masterpiece Theater with Lori and I needed refuge…..these turned out real nice. Now gotta figure out my miter math.



Feeling it a little. Wish I didn't have to work tomorrow…. ;)

Through the eye of the needle….

Finally got a clean 30degree practice miter around, shiny and stacked tonight. What a relief. Was like a dream.

Machined up two more practice sets, filed, drilled and cleaned them up. Ready to hit tomorrow night hopefully.

As soon as I am satisfied…it's go time on Dan's frame.

ONWARD.

Burn Baby Burn

After several hours of trial and error in the weld pool (or the doo doo that once was a weld pool...) I finally cracked a good portion of the code last night with some help from Gary at UBI...stand up guy that Gary. A few tips on welder setup and things started to click. I think another couple of hours learning how to keep things even cleaner than I have been and tightening up my beads a little and I'll be ready to lay into Dan's Bike.......

2012 Resolutions :
Finish Dan's Bike, and maybe my own.
Write more.
Yoga regimen by 40!

Onward