New/amateur/garage/kitchen framebuilding discussion

TIG welding is a bit tricky as it. Small bits that heat easily with small edges is trickier.

Thanks!

TIG welding is a bit tricky

Don't say that... I've been trying to decide whether to weld or braze for the last 6 months. I'm almost certain that welding is the way to go - cleaner, safer and more 'appropriate' for the style of bike I want to build. But I can only afford to pick up one method, at least to start with, especially as a TIG setup seems to be about twice the start up cost of brazing, and I know that the learning curve is steeper.

Welding is easy enough, but getting good looking a durable welds does require practice. It all does.
I am struggling a bit pushing my tig welding that bit extra to make it pro, but I know what to do, i just can't afford it.

Either way you will have fun

Having tigged a fair bit now i love it, welding is my favourite bit of building a frame. When everything is flowing nicely and you know youre laying nice beads its extremely satisfying.

However it takes a fair bit of trial and error to get it right. Building up the muscle memory to do it nicely takes a while, but i think its worth it for sure. I cant imagine brazing and having to file/sand every joint it would double the time it takes me to build a frame hah.

But that is also rewarding and becomes faster with practice ;-)

to be fair the small amount of filing/sanding of fillets ive done has been very satisfying

I'm happy to get stuck in sanding and filing - but the more I think about it the more I realise that TIG is where I want to end up, so I might as well start with that. Thanks for the advice, both.

Question, if I space my dropouts to 142mm, I can with Paragon inlets go down to 135 mm OLD (and QR)?

If you mean these inserts then I suspect you are probably right as the qr ones seem a lot flatter which would account for the difference in width.

I wondered at one point if I could do this with my Kona Unit which is 135mm qr and I believe the Unit X is 142x12 TA and the frames look pretty much identical. The inserts are a bit pricey and I kind of went off the idea so I never got round to trying it.

Thanks! I'll give it a try if the place where I'm going to for the framebuilding course says it's ok and can source it.

Might be worth firing paragon an email to ask them if the inserts do indeed account for the spacing.

They usually have technical drawings for the parts in pdf format. Should be obvious from them.

Seems that the information was there if I looked

"All our Sliding, Rocker, and PolyDrop dropouts can be converted from a 10 x 135 mm to a 12 x 142 mm hub. It is as easy as switching out the 135 x 10 mm inserts for ones that are compatible with a 142 x 12 mm hub."

Thanks for the help @M_V and @Brommers

First go on TIG. This could take a while...

1 Attachment

After some advice - I'm about to go down the custom steel disc fork route and I'd like to spec the fork crown as I really dislike the aesthetic of either segmented or the traditional U shape.

I looked up Ceeway and found this:

1 Attachment

Is there anything I need to consider/alternatives that would look more like a traditional horizontal crown?

And how much clearance would you subtract from the wheel size specified above or does that include mud?!

I think that one fits a 2.0" tyre max. I think I have a photo of it actually

I think I have a photo of it actually

2" tyre is ideal - if you have a photo that would be great.

PS will need a stem at some point...

This tyre measures 50mm bang on.

What sort of fork do you need? I got this going spare. No dropouts in yet yet and 220mm 1 1/8" steerer.

5 Attachments

That would be ideal, although I wonder that a 44mm headtube measuring 170mm might be a bit tight..

yes. If external cups you'd need 250mm steerer.

Another thing. 44mm head tube and skinny cast fork crown might look that nice imo

I agree, I'm probably after the impossible ie a wide cast fork crown so the transition doesn't look weird

Maybe a custom bi plane thing? Or fillet brazed segmented? There are different types og segmented forks and some look better than others

http://www.monebikes.com/store/bi-plane-fork