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

Ive had some success with vinegar saturated with salt. Running a current through it.

just found this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gwA-sTBg44&t=20s

It was ferric chloride that I was using but that was for brass and copper.

I had a shot with some other acid, hydrochloric or something, but you had to dissolve some copper in the acid and maybe mix something else in to start with and that just got really fizzy and exothermic and I shat myself and had to dump a load of baking soda in it to neutralise the reaction. That was the final straw for me with etching. Now I’ve got a few bottles of acid hiding under the kitchen sink and no idea what to do with them!

Has @MrE not done some headbadge etching?

see here: https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/307091/

High Five!

Yaaas!

Keep forgetting to update this thread.

Been building my mate a frame recently. Gravel/winter fixed. 35s and guards in winter, 38s in summer.

He was down for whatever and I fancied doing another lugged frame. It's been good honing my skills with the silver. Had to find some creative ways to work with the lugs that are available too. Things like sleeving a 28.6mm steattube into lugs that are fora 31.8mm tube so that parts are interchangeable between this and a frame he already has without having to deal with shims.

Had to do some setting of the chainstay ports on the bb lug so that I could use cx bend stays to get the tyre clearance he wanted.

On a slight hiatus while I wait for another set of seat stays to arrive as I kinked the first ones trying to cold set a wishbone seattube lug in to 120mm spacing.

Got achance to use my hydraulic dimpler on this too, that was fun!

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Also been building a couple racks recently.

This one for Jim of Albannach frameworks...

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Loving the way you JFDI. I'm totally the opposite - many plans, much dreams, not much actual doing at the moment.

And this long overdue one for an ex colleague who said he'd take a rack in exchange for some parts too long ago, sorry!

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Lastly, today I cut a hole in my cargo bike.

I'm going to attach another headtube and turn it from a cycle truck into a Mini-Max type thing with a steering linkage in the hopes of curing it's death wobble.

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I have too many plans and dreams and not enough time...or money!

I'm looking forward to getting stuck into the GT that @Rik_Van_Looy sent me. You can see it in the background of the first photo of Jim's bike. Think I'm about settled on a plan for it ;)

loving that seat tube arrangement on the Jim bike and looking forward to seeing what you do to the GT

Jim's is the ti Albannach, the one I'm building is for Gav.

Cheers. Did consider a larger seattube and shims or just deal with it being a different size but I'm glad I went this way, its a lot more interesting than simply using a larger tube. The top part will be cut down and shaped to match the sleeve (which in turn matches the lug) once I don't need to put the frame in the jig anymore.

Love this thread! Are the racks 6mm solid steel or pipe? Reminds me of @bankiren work, wich is high praise in my book.

Montana paint for the colour, gleaming pink base and gentian blue crackle over the top.

Do you know if the crackle coat has to go over a Montana based colour? Or do you think you could apply it to an already painted bike?

Cheers.

Finial bike looks spot on BTW.

I think the instructions said it could go over other brand paint but they also said to do the crackle coat within something like 45minutes yo an hour and a half of painting the base.

I could try some of it on an already painted tube for you later today.

Thanks and I think I remember seeing the stuff he did so I do indeed take that as high praise!

It’s 10mm tube.

That would be awesome.

Just wondering if it could be used as a way to rad up a naff paint job. Although it sort of does make sense that you'd need a un-cured(?) based to paint on.

Thank you for reminding me about this!

No dice on cured paint.

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Thanks a lot for that. It's a really useful thing to know.

Plus it's stopped me looking at a whole load of shitly coloured kids bikes on ebay.

Something you've probably thought of, but popped into my head is using Harley-style black wrinkle paint. Would fit the beefy aesthetic. Particularly on the frames with lots of surfaces from multiple tubes and crowns as you'd get a slight shine/contrast when their near each other.

Yeah, I’ve looked at truck bed liner paint before as it has a rough texture like the stuff on Harley’s.

It’s one of those things that seems really easy to come by in the US but not so much over here. Would deffo be up for trying it if I could get hold of some at a decent price.

Picked that tube I painted up yesterday and the blue paint was really powdery, came away on my hands. Thought it was quite strange because the paint job on the bike (which admittedly has clear coat over it) is seeming really pretty durable.

Dustin Klein on youtube did this with truck bed paint - looked cool.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4LScGIAQxI