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

North West?! Even worse!!

To be honest mine started with harvesting seatbelts a few times a month for nearly six months, and building a solid give&take arrangement with favours like patching the boss’ jacket. It took a lot of work to get to the point that they let me near the bikes.

To be honest it only happened because of how angry I was with that Sally Army bike place I’d volunteered at before. The second or third bike in a row bought from there had snapped/broken, and the guys at the scrapyard threw me a bone. 11 months later and I’m in an enviable position I suppose!

Maybe you need to make friends with the scrap and house clearance guys. Most of the bikes come out of cleared garages and gardens anyway.

I know a scrap man North of Bury... could ask what the score is around stuff like this but'd need to know a bit more what you're after. I'll see him again next week.

Oh aye? I'm usually after metal scrap (bar, tube, plate, section etc. for welding) plus old tools and machinery (power tools, motors, etc.) Bikes a but less, but I would consider them.

Is it the case that he would reserve stuff as it comes in or can you go in and have a poke around?

Where is it btw?

Is it the case that he would reserve stuff as it comes in or can you go in and have a poke around?

It is something we've never discussed before so I'd have to ask, I doubt poking around is an option though.

I'm not sure exactly where it is either, North of Bury/ Rammy direction though.

Scrapyards are inherently dangerous. Heavy machinery, tradesmen in a hurry, etc. I’ve had a few near misses (massive trucks without reversing noises, sketchy close passes, glass fragments in the arm, etc) and I considered myself visible, careful and aware of my surroundings. These kinda guys don’t want anything squidgy in the way, it’s certain death.

With that aside, they also work on an incredibly fast rotation, so no time to wait or for you to try lift that half a car off the nice pile of steel.

Yeah I can imagine letting randomers browse the yard is the last thing they want! But it's also the thing I want.

these are great builds!! GREAT!!

Got the gravel frame finished and built it today.

Forks to match the biplane seatstay wishbone are coming next.

Also stripped the minivelo, got rid of (most of) the remaining paint and gave it a coat of linseed oil. I’ll be drilling the frame to route dynamo wiring through it.

Lastly, sold the bullmoose bad I made to a mate. He wants me to add a loop to the front so he can better attach bikepacking stuff so got that cut and mitred tonight, will braze tomorrow.

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Offering the Hummus frame for sale, https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/341209/#comment15001429

Hummus is away :( Folding Puch is going to a new home tomorrow.

But out with the old in with the new, I’ve been promised a front end impact damaged Orange P7 and this old Rockhopper just dropped into my lap.

The Rockhopper is in pretty rough shape from the seattube back, I’m going to strip some of the paint and loose rust back and see if it’s salvageable. If it’s not, I think the downtube would make a nice toptube.

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Orange frame was waiting in work for me today.

Sliding dropouts look very useful.

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Gonna be good.

Step 1:

The ss dropout and other parts for the King headset (which, along with a well worn Thomson post and a Fox Vanilla fork, I have paid for) are incoming.

Struggling to find seat stays that'll fill out that tab. It's about 20mm across and most of the seat stays that ceewaysell are 19mm at their widest and taper at the bottom. Hoping that the wishbone desin means I can remove most of the taper and be left with a 17-18mm section to fill out that tab with a bit of a fillet.

Bought a stainless steel trivet from ikea for £3 and made this,

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Tidy, what filler metal did you use? standard silver solder or fancy stuff?

Just regular silver filler rod from Ceeway. Can’t remember what %.

nice! for some reason I thought stainless coulnd't be brazed...

Not with brass. Needs to be silver brazed

nod nod

i'm getting into the idea of tig brazing...

it's basically using a tig torch to heat (but not melt) the base metals, then you flow in some silicon bronze rod

Yes! and bonus, it looks awesome

huh! i'd been led to believe you couldn't (shouldn't?) build bike frames with it

I’ve read that silicon bronze rods aren’t supposed to be used for structural things too but I used it on my first couple frames and they are still in one piece.

ive heard this as well, not sure exactly why but yeah. i think its something to do with ease of contamination.

Looking into the same. Will do some structural tests with it.

Btw normal/gas brazing uses silicon bronze as well, just with added zinc for better flow.