Framebuilding: Days 5-7

February 15, 2010 in By Bike | No comments

Framebuilding essentially boils down into three complex skills:

  • Setting stuff up right & cutting it to fit
  • Brazing stuff
  • Filing stuff

Now, “filing” has never come across as a particularly enviable or impressive talent (I mean, after all, I can jump through my leg!). But it turns out that it is, in fact, an easy thing to do badly and a hard thing to do well. Having spent the last four days doing just that for hours on end (note the dearth of blog action between posts!), I feel pretty awesome re: my filing skillz. There’s a great deal of technique necessary, as well as an eye for what’s needed where.

It’s this meticulous attention to detail in every element of the bike that, I imagine, sets this course apart from other framebuilding experiences. Doug is fanatical about detail and about raising skill levels far above basic competency. It’s not like we’re just learning to throw some tubes together to build a frame: we’re learning the sensitive eye and hand, the fine art of finishing joints and smoothing brazes. I don’t feel extra snooty w/r/t bikes now, but I do feel like my eye for good design and finish work has been radically reoriented and informed.

Anyway, here are some shots to track my progress:

Brass brazing the rear dropouts to chainstays. Brass brazing is a lot more intuitive than silver for me, and super fun! It looks cooked because you have to use really (molten) high temps to get the brass to flow.
Here’s where the filing art comes in. Those brass lumps from the previous shot are filed down just so to make the right shape to flow the chainstay tube into the dropout.

I decided to get fancy with my bottom bracket and do a heart-shaped cutout. This was very tough to get centred and symmeterical.

Here’s the bottom bracket brazed to the seat tube.
Brazing in progress as Herbie ensures I don’t do anything catastrophically wrong.
Brazed! Fork crown to steer tube.
Brazed! Fork blades to fork crown. Note my ultra-hot hand drilled circle cutout! Custom!
Fork blades after a little bit of the old shinin’ action
We filled the hole underneath the fork crown with a solid metal plug. This will be drilled later on so that I can mount fenders from underneath. It’s a simple element, understated element that required an elegant filing job.
My fork in Josh’s wheel. That red Chris King hub is well beyond my budget!
The frame, lookin’ real purdy!