FRAMES DONE!!!

Finally at the end of the day as we are coverd in dirt and metal shavings the frames are done. 

They don't look like much now but they are strong, solid, straight, and ready to be prepped for painting.  Once we have filed and sanded off all the clumps of silver and brass we left on the frames and smoothed everything out we will bring the frames back to Tim's shop for powder coating.

Day 4 - Finishing the frame build

The frames are very close to done.  Today we are going to add the braze-ons for the water bottle cages, cable stops, the rear brake calipar, and Katrina's rack mounts. 

Since my bike is more of a racing geometry I opted not to have the rack mounts.  I am also only getting two water bottle cages. 

Katrina's bike is going to be more for road biking and some light touring so her frame will have 3 water bottle cages and rack mounts. As mentioned before has more tire clearance.

Also because the heat has caused the tubes to shrink slightly we then had to ream out the seat post tube to make sure the seat post would fit.

We also took a break to challenge Tim to a game of ping pong before finishing our bikes.  He slaughter me 4 to 21 but Katrina managed to lose by one point. 

Day 3 - Braze braze braze

On the third day we finally get a reprieve with the weather.  With temps in the triple digits last weekend we had a nice little nip in the air bringing temperatures down to the mid nineties which made the temperature perfect in the shop. 

Today we have to braze all the lugs we tacked with exception of one, the seatpost lug.  That is a tough braze and we need to have everything else done before hitting that.

Because the need for our braze to get all the way into the joint and under each lug we used silver on these sections.  Silver is tons more expensive than brass but it's easier for us novices to use so Tim has us use silver on most of the frame.

Ordering Paint

Today we ordered the paint for the bike.  Even though we are having Tim's painter powder coat the bikes we wanted to make it look custom.  So we decided to paint all the lugs in an emerald green.  Tim told us that "1 shot paint" is excellent for doing that.   We can brush on the paint and then heat it and it will smooth out and look professional. 

In addition to that we ordered some metallic silver paint to outline the lugs.

After that we ordered some holographic metal flakes to mix with the green paint.

Day 2 - Tacking the pieces together

Now for tacking the pieces together.  We used copper and silver wire to attach all the pieces together so we could can remove it from the jig and finish brazing the rest of the bike. 

Tim is such a good instructor.  An example of how good he is.  When you have things in each of your hand what does a person normally do to grab something?....use their mouth.  I was running out of wire at one point and needed to pull more wire straight but I had the tourch in one hand and the rolled up wire in the other. 

I hadn't even moved...it just looked at it... when Tim said "don't put that in your mouth".  I would have totally burned my mouth!

Day 2 - Putting the pieces in the Jig

After getting the first triangle together we have to get the Jig set up with the proper angles.  Of course I made Katrina go first.  Tim helped us set everything up and get the first triangle in.  Then after that we put in the second triangle and lined everything up.

Katrina had to crimp her rear chain stays in order to give her more tire size options in case she wanted thicker more comfortable tires at anytime.

Day 2 - Putting the first Triangle together.

The bike frame is made of two triangles.  The front and rear triangle.  The front triangle we piece together with the lugs and for the first time we can see a bike frame starting to appear.  The white stuff you see on the frames is the flux.  we coated the joints in flux for when we braze these pieces together.