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….