Geoff Roberts Framebuilding course - first and second, and third frames. And fourth (now finished). And fifth.

Burning torches

Everything to give me an excuse to buy brazing equipment. Looking forward to seeing the oh-so-controversial finish ;)

That brake bridge is lovely. Looking great!

Cheers @7ven. I'm rather pleased with the way it came out.

I've got a bit behind on my updates on this project. I finished the course several weeks ago, and haven't yet covered Day 5. Day 5 was a short day as I wanted to get back to the Fens to do my club's cyclocross skills session - hopping on and off bikes while moving, what a daft idea - so I only had the morning to make a start on Frame 4. Frame 4 was supposed to be my bike for leaving in Basel, but that plan has been superseded somewhat by my impulse purchase of a Lynskey R470 disc frameset, so I'm going to have to find another excuse for building Frame 4.

As I mentioned earlier, Frame 4 is going to be fillet-brazed with the usual mix of Spirit and Life tubing, a standard BSA68 BB shell and curvy double bend seat stays. Other than the double bend seat stays, the only unusual thing about the frame will be the integrated headset. I got some machined head tubes for integrated headsets from Solid BMX in the States. They only do two sizes, but the shorter one should work well for me. I decided to do an integrated headset because (1) it's a bit different (2) I'll be using a Ritchey Cyclocross fork which should match the OD of the headtube (3) the headtube would be stupidly short with an external headset and the cyclocross fork and (4) the gravel-lite bike I'm planning to make for @Cycliste will need a custom integrated headtube as it's going to be a weeny 85mm long even with internal bearings.

The Solid BMX headtube is nicely machined, but it does live up to its name. It's pretty chunky. But then it is designed to be used on BMXs I suppose, so no surprise there.

Anyway, on Day 5 I mitered the main tubes for the front triangle, tacked them, and did the fillet braze on the headtube/downtube junction. And then treated Geoff to a slap-up lunch, and buggered off. You can't see it in any detail in this pic, but I'm rather pleased with my fillet braze on this one. Definitely better than the brazing on Brommers Bike #2.

Once I'd got home, I started the finishing work on Frame 3. This consisted of:

1. Chopping down the excess stainless steel tube in the internal rear brake cable doodah, and filing the ends.
   
2. Chopping off the excess seat tube above the lug and filing to match the lug.
   
3. Chopping off the top of the lug and headtube to bring the top of the headtube down a bit. The Llewellyn top headtube lugs are very tall, on the basis you can cut them down to suit.
   
4. Ream and face the headtube. A nice excuse to get out some of the more serious tools from the garage.
   
5. Ream the seat tube to 30.6mm, fit the shim, and cut and file it down to match the top of the lug.
   
   

I nearly had a bit of a flap over reaming the seat-tube, as I needed to ream it out to 30.6mm or sa smidge more (the nominal internal dimension of the Columbus seat tube is 30.7mm) but my largest adjustable reaming tool claimed it only went up to 30.16mm. Thank goodness for sloppy manufacturing tolerances - it just made it up to 30.6mm at the limit of its range of adjustment.

And yes, I know I need to clean all the swarf next to the vice. Don't judge me, man, I've been busy.

Then I painted the inside of the seat tube with some acid etch primer, to try and prevent or at least slow down any galvanic corrosion between the steel seat tube and the aluminium shim, and once that had dried stuck the shim in place with some rubberised cyanoacrylate (yep, superglue) and put in my seat tube diameter testing sacrificial seat post while it all set in place.

Yep, still haven't tidied up all that swarf. Still busy.

Top tip for next time I fit a shim - empty the top tube of all the crap and blasting medium before fitting the shim which closes off the open end of the seat tube. Or drill a nice bit hole in the shim in advance. Drilling holes at 45 degrees with a hand drill is not a fun experience.

More to follow.

former Basel Bike (PlanetX Pro Carbon, Ritchey Superlogic, SRAM Force, Quarq Riken) which @Cycliste left to be stolen in the communal bike store in her block of flats.

Is this still available?

Funnily enough, no. Not unless the person who pinched it has grown tired of it.

WOW WOW and again WOW! what a great read!!! and super work!! following this thread i am!

Yep, still haven't tidied up all that swarf. Still busy.

That is clean now?

That is clean now?

Well, you can't see the swarf any more. That's because it's covered in lots of strips of worn-smooth emery paper. So, ah, no. Definitely not. Still busy.

So, after the work on the head tube and seat tube/shim, it was time to start polishing and filing things to make everything shiny and tidy. As usual, I probably went a bit overboard on this stage.

The headtube probably doesn't need to be polished to quite such a mirror-like standard, but I do like a nice clean shoreline.

I also drilled out the centres of the Di2 ports and filed and polished the stainless reinforcement plates. They do need to be shiny. Here's the DT one with a mock-up cable inserted for testing.

thumbsup.jpg

What kind of files do you use to work the concave areas of the headtube / lug interface? I'm about to start prepping a frame for painting and I'd like to neaten a couple of bits, but a set of needle files seems tricky to get access with...

A combination of pointy needle files and Swiss Riffler files. The Riffler files are apparently horribly expensive, but @Cycliste bought me a set as a present a while back.

They look like the right tool for the job, thanks. Cheap ones exist, we'll if they're worth the money...

She did buy me a set of 10 Riffler files, which rather adds up apparently...

The worst injury I ever had in the workshop was cleaning up a brazed on seat clamp (inside of the tube) with a needle file. Was putting upwards force with frame held on its side on surface plate. In out in out, slipped, didn't go back in, stabbed myself in the face, just below nostril. Had to get someone else to pull it out it was stuxk in so hard. Was the day I realised safety specs aren't optional. Enjoy!

Ouch. I've managed to punch myself in the face with a spring-loaded clamp, but I don't think I've ever stabbed myself in the face. There's still plenty of time for that to happen though.

So, after the work above, I set about filing and polishing and filing and polishing and filing and polishing. This took an inordinately and amazingly long time. For example, the Llewellyn rear dropouts come with eyelets cast in, on the basis that if you don't need them you can always chop them off. I don't need them, so I chopped them off, but this left the rear dropouts looking a bit lumpy up close.

Nobody will, of course, ever notice that. I don't imagine that anyone is every going to carefully inspect the roundness of my rear dropouts. However, it's still lumpy so needs sorting. And after half an hour of careful filing and shaping, I've got to this:

However, @Cycliste (who I send a copy of the photo above) thinks the transition between the seat stay and the top of the rear dropout looks wrong. Bear in mind this is on the inside of the dropout, and will be covered up by the rear hub. But, still, she has a point. Time to break out the files again, and start reshaping things again. A little later, I've got to this:

Time to do the NDS dropout next and repeat the whole process. And then there's the shorelines on the dropouts and the little splodge of brass. And that's just the dropouts.

Anyway, eventually the frame was ready for paint, filed, polished and fettled. Like this.

I also sanded the decals off the fork (an Easton EC90SLX) as they were quite thick and would have showed through the paint. Time to spray.

ready for paint

The tension is unbearable.

Nearly finished. The paintwork won't attract too many haters, I don't think. The finishing kit, on the other hand...

I'd originally planned to spend the week in August I spent with Geoff doing a frame painting course with Cole Coatings, but I realised that I wouldn't have a frame ready in time to paint, so changed my plans. Painting this frame has confirmed that I really need to go on the Cole Coatings course though.

I've had two main problems with the paint. The scheme is mostly red and black (yep, sooooo original) with silver decals on the black bits and black decals on the red bits. I'd originally planned to use some chrome paint for the silver decals, as not only would it look most excellent but also the chrome paint goes over a black base, whereas the normal silver base paint I've got really needs a pale base to go over. I managed to comprehensively screw up doing all the decals, for two reasons:

1. Didn't follow the instructions for the chrome paint properly, and thought I could get away with some shortcuts. As usual, the shortcuts turned into very long cuts.
   
2. The vinyl I've been using for masks is too thick, I think, and keeps lifting at the edges on the tighter tube radiuseseses. Due to the paint schemes I've used before the decals are actually the base coat colour under the effects coat, so I've just had to do the letters in vinyl, stick them on, spray over them, and then remove the vinyl letters. This time I need to have vinyl masks with the letters cut out, which is proving harder to do well.
   
   

The result of these issues was that I ended up having to sand off the decals I'd done, redo the base coat, and then do the decals a second time. I gave up on the chrome paint and used silver, so had to do a white base coat over the black base, before doing the silver. Here's the last coat of silver on the 'BROMMERS' decal on the downtube.

Once I'd managed to do the base coats and decals then it was time for the clear coat, then flat back the coat coat and add a flowcoat, and then flat and polish the flowcoat. That's all done now. I'll add some more pictures of the painted frame and forks shortly.

Oh, and I've realised I need to have an airbrush to do the decals with. Even a weeny touch-up gun throws out too much paint for the lettering and logos. So I've bought an airbrush to use on the next frame. And a little electric polisher, as my wrists are hurting from polishing the whole frame and forks by hand.

Looking forward to the big reveal

Crappy under-lit phone pictures, but here's the painted frame and forks with the headset fitted. Build currently in progress. I think the finished bike is going to look great, but I really think I'm going to be on my own on that front given the component choices.

Lovely job!!

So, it's time for the build. And time for the members of the mob to gather together their bladed agricultural instruments and burning torches. Haterz gonna hate.