Front Triangle is complete. Head tube and seat tube have been reamed thanks to my friends at Plum Grove Cyclery. Working on the chain stays now. Have a bit of a problem with alignment in the jig….
Bicycle Seat Stays and Chain Stays
Next step in the frame building process is to figure out the rear triangle (I know, don’t have the main triangle quite done yet). This will be a track bike as you can see and will use a vintage style seat stay attachment flute.
Makeshift Bicycle Alignment Table
I had a piece of 1 inch plate hanging around and jury rigged a bottom bracket holder. It worked pretty well. Need to work on the bottom bracket holder some more to get rid of the washers as they are not strong enough. But like I said it seemed to work well enough for now.
Close up view of the bottom bracket holder. Had some old machined tractor parts hanging around that worked out quite well. Drilled out the plate and attached the fixture and was able to cold set my first seat tube / bottom bracket assembly.
Bicycle Frame – Front Triangle Ready to Braze!
Main triangle is all setup and triple checked for proper length. Next steps will be to get jig all set in place, remove pieces and add all the flux and reassemble in jig. Tack all the joints (maybe complete in jig, not sure yet) and check for alignment before finishing all the joints.
Bicycle Pedals – 1899
Some great early pedal ads circa 1899. The Ramsey pedal is really cool with it’s offset spindle. The Bridgeport No1 and No2 are killer rat trap styles as well. I think that we may be Bridgeport as in Bridgeport Milling Machine from CT but I have to investigate that some more. Enjoy!
Abstract Steel Sculpture – In Progress
A larger outdoor steel sculpture I started working on today. So far so good. The “balance” is right and scale seems pretty good. Just tacked up for now so I can continue to modify. To do: figure out topping it off and a few additions to the base. Stands about 6.5 ft. high and about 8 ft. wide so far.
Hossfeld No1 Bender – Great Metal Bending Tool
This is a Hossfeld No1 Bender. I already have it’s bigger brother the No2 but I found this one at auction and could not pass it by. I may try to see if I can use it for bending bicycle frame tubing and bicycle forks. It being smaller than the No2 I think it might be easier/cheaper to make dies for it.
Close up – all necessary parts are with it including the bending yoke and eyelet bender for the top. See http://www.hossfeldbender.com/ for details.
Sculpture Supply – Latest Drop Off
Here are a few items recently dropped off by a friend of mine. Love the tapered cylinder! It is actually a log splitter if you can believe that. Will make a nice piece of sculpture I am sure. More shovel heads too!
Early Bicycle Rim Drill – 1899
Another great pic from an early 1899 Catalog. Sent the image to Wheel Fanatyk to see what he thinks. Wheel Fanatyk is a cool blog about wheel building with an emphasis on wooden wheels.
Slow Frame Building Progress
Not a lot going on in the frame building front. Working on getting an alignment table figured out before I can go much further. Will probably not get the frame complete by the time I go to the Handmade Bicycle Show in Feb.