M_V's multitude of bikes and adventures in the land of framebuilding

I rode the Surly 1x1 on the same trails yesterday and totally found myself running out of brakes (it has cantis) and manoeuvrability (it has a huge, non sloping top tube frame).

I can’t see me making much use of the Surly as a mountain bike now I’ve got the Hummus set up like this so I’m thinking about some 2”+ slicks, big wide mudguards, maybe strip the dynamo out of its 700c rim and rebuild it on a 26” rim...fbnpna fodder.

Bullmoose bars on the Hummus today and climbing on it is a lot better.

Also chucked the 1x1 together with some parts I have just now, seems fun.

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Couple small tweaks to the Hummus,

Gas Pipe stem,

Also visible in that photo, the short lived hydro brakes. Short lived because they leaked (I must have bought every bloody set of leaky hydros off ebay I'm sure) so back to the bb7s but have treated the bike to XTR levers.

Oh and also gone to regular riser bars too. Looks a bit more 'normal' but rides good.

Also been trying to up my brazing game recently.

Upgraded to an oxy-propane setup and have been doing lots and lots of practice joints. Bought a load of tubes and 'practice' lugs from Ceeway too,

And just started making myself a rack. This'll eventually go on the Surly 1x1 which I've decided to make into a sort of functional, commuter type thing, it's never going to get used asa mtb, the Hummus is just way too good!

Nice rack!

...what tubing are you using?

Cheers.

This is just some 10mm erw that my local hardware store had.

I’d like to be making this kind of thing for people and would maybe use something nicer once I’m doing that but for now this is cheap and readily available.

Something nicer? For a porteur rack? Nah. Nice mitres on the cross bits btw!

trying to up my brazing game

Great that you've been able to get some practice and upgraded your gas rig. Jealous.

Will get some good photos once I have preoperly finished the rack. It needs defluxing and some filing and sanding and a coat of either linseed oil or paint. Hammerite black?

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just catching up on the builds, so many great builds. How's the folder getting on love rad folder / shopper.

It’s great. I’ve used it tons more than I thought I would.

Need to sort out a better seatpost/saddle clamp though as it creaks like death!

Took the long route to work today on the Surly.

Also, I've been doing a bit of work to my mate's Surly Steamroller this week. Guard mounts on the fork legs and seat stays and filling a little dent on the toptube.

Got the cleanup on the forks finished today.

The brazing is done on the frame, cleanup tomorrow I hope.

I’ve been daydreaming at work a bit and have come up with a cunning new project...

I was thinking it’d be fun to build a track frame. It’d be reasonably cheap, simple and something I don’t currently have (a track legal track frame that is). But I don’t have a jig and I’m not sure it’s worth shelling out for tubes and lugs etc when it’s probably very unlikely I could build a straight frame at the moment.

I’ve also been thinking though, that I’ve robbed a couple parts from my shopper for the Surly and it’s not really worth replacing these parts as the Surly has made the shopper redundant.

Enter the Frankenshoppertrack.

I need to do some measuring but the basic plan would be, replace the forward facing dropouts with track ends, modify the existing fork or get a new one, build it up with 700c wheels instead of the 26x 1 3/4 it’s meant to have which might hopefully increase the bb height to something track legal.

It’s a cheap as chips gas pipe frame so I know it’s not going to be light or fast but it would give me brazing practice and I’d end up with a bike to ride on the velodrome.

I’m thinking I start by chucking some 700c wheels in there to see what the bb height is like as if it’s too low it’ll probably not be worth continuing.

If the bb height is workable, cut the existing dropouts out and reuse the chain stays if possible. I have 2 sets of seat stays from ceeway so I might just replace the existing ones. This might also allow me to tweak the geometry of the rear end a little to lift the bb. Either way the existing brake bridge is a horrible pressed plate affair so that would be going, I have a couple nice brake bridges I could put in there instead.

The current fork is too raked out for track use so I’m going to look at whether I can trim the legs down a bit. This would remove some curve/rake and I’d attach a new pair of dropouts. Ceeway have some nice socket type fork ends.

Shortening the fork will obv have an impact upon the bb height but it would at least steepen the head and seat angles.

If modifying the fork works then that might be it, if I have to replace the fork I’m going to struggle as the headtube is pretty long. In this case I might chop the current toptube out, debraze the top headtube lug, cut the headtube down and fillet braze in a new top tube. I have a couple of suitable tubes already.

So...good idea or bonkers and gonna end up with an abortion of a frame?!

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To me it sound like a lot of hassle, you might have better chances of building a enough straigth frame with a home made jig. Plenty of people have done it with wooden jigs and eyeballing.

Yeah it probably is a bit of hassle but it’s better than just brazing useless practice joints and it means I don’t have to face the dilemma of keeping the shopper frame sat around incase I find a use for it versus putting it on eBay and having the trouble of posting it etc.

So with that in mind I got started today.

Bb height with the stock 26 x 1 1/4 wheels was 275mm or 10 3/4” so track legal. I think. It’s 10.5” innit? I should really know haha.

Mmm, Manchester site says 11”. Oh well, with 700s on there it was raised to 11 1/4” anyway and I think I’m going to make some ‘gains’ in this department in just a minute.

With the guards off and a skinnier tyre in the frame it became apparent the rear end is looooong. I also looked at the current dropouts and realised they are horrible cheap things and the method of attachment to the stays is basically that they’ve flattened the end of the stay around the dropout and then welded them together.

Easy solution, chop those suckers right off. I’ve also had to chop the seat stay bracing plate out in order to get the wheel closer to the bb area.

I’m thinking shortening the seatstays will actually mean I gain a bit of bb height though we’ll need to see what track ends I use...

The seatstay/dropout junction was equally as cheap and nasty plus the stays are now terminating in the middle of nowhere so I just removed these at the seatcluster. Debrazed as much as I could but have left the area a bit rough and needing some cutting/filing so as to avoid over heating the area.

The forks are going to be a challenge. Unfortunately there isn’t as much room in them as I’d hoped so I don’t think chopping the curve out is really going to work. If dropouts are cheap enough I might just have a go at shortening them for the fun of it but I think I’m really going to need to replace the fork. That of course means the toptube might have to go but I’ll figure that out later.

I think I’ll get some track ends onto the chopped down chainstays and mock it up again with the current fork and see where the bb height is. I don’t think changing the fork to a less raked one necessarily means loosing any height.

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Interesting stuff! Keep the updates coming.

How's that oxy setup working out? Is it a lot of cost/hassle?

Loving it.

I was £170 for the kit and about the same again getting set up with gas cylinders, obviously once this gas runs out its a lot less to get refills.

Was hoping to be able to use these track ends,

But the chainstays on the shopper frame are 9mm ID and those ends have an 11.5mm OD plug so I don't think that's going to work.

Also, I cut through some of the weld holding the remnants of the chainstay brace plate on and started to peel it off, before I knew what had happened I'd pulled a bit of the chainstay off with the plate. So there's a +/- 3mm diameter hole in the bottom of one chainstay now :(

Spent most of today working on racks.

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Racks have taken something of a backseat just now.

I added uprights made from slotted right angle steel to the small ones then realised this was gonna make them really difficult/expensive to ship.

I also painted mine and one of the wee ones with Hammerite and I’m pretty unhappy with the finish. Sprayed the other wee one but it probably needs another coat or 2.

I’ll get that done and some struts made first time I get a full day to spend in the workshop which hasn’t happened recently due to shifts and personal life getting in the way.

What time I have been getting has been dedicated to building a stem and a frame (I decided to ditch the idea of converting the old shopper frame).

So far I’ve got the downtube fillet brazed to the headtube and the seat and down tubes brazed into the bb lug. Track ends are also in the chainstays.

The stem was originally going to have a removable faceplate but I quite liked the old school look of it with just the bottom of the handlebar clamp split. Hoping to get this finished up tomorrow.

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Like the stem. That's one hell of a headtube on that frame though!

Cheers.

As for the headtube, waiting till I get the toptube in to chop it down. I thought about cutting it before now but I thought I’d probably end up leaving it a bit long and having to do two cuts so it’d be a bit wasteful. It’s actually been pretty useful for checking the alignment with the seattube anyway.

Keep it, homage to the Foffa hi-pro!

Nice fillet on the stem. Where did you get the tubes for it? I remember that aircraft spruce had some tubes in the right diameter...