Benana's bikes, attempts at frame building and bag making

As this this was ht/dt lug, normally the first thing to braze, it left me in a bit of a pickle. I put in an order with ceeway as soon as possible but with his opening hours and ordering process it isn't that quick. A bit stressful with only 2 weeks to do it in. I moved on to the fork. My first fork so a little nervous about it holding up. I was really happy with getting the 40%silver solder to flow through nicely. Should be strong. I finished off the jig too. Work had lots of aluminium extrusion lying around from a job, really handy.

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Next on to the fork blade bending jig. I think with tight deadline I didn't take many photos. So like that how to draw an owl diagram I only have a 2 step process.

I cut out a curve on to 2 pieces of 18mm birch ply then routed a 45 on the edge and screwed them together. I then tried sanding a curve into that groove but soon got bored. I read as fork blades are so thick you don't need to worry about a perfect former to stop kinking. These are the Reynolds blades designed for disc brakes so a solid 1.1mm. I made the rest of the former with offcuts and cheap skateboard wheel. I tried to have a removable handle but that wasn't robust enough and bent. I had to use some big square tube as a handle but not pictured.

awesome work :)

I couldn't get the photos to load yesterday

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I moved on to the bb and chainstays next. I wanted to get chunky tires in so bent the lugs out as much as possible. Found a bit of pipe that fit well in the chainstay and made it strong enough to use as a lever. Brazed in the seat tube and made a bit of jig for the rear triangle.

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I then used some copper pipe to mock up how much bend to put on the chainstays and where to add a dimple. I used plumbing pipe bender as it fits the 22mm stays well. Some scraps of tube to try and stop any damage to them. Not sure this bike would have been possible without the scrap metal selection at work.

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woah! big tires! should be cool :)

I like the use of hella precious copper tube for testing :)

Managed to fit 2.1s. I ordered them through a bike shop and hadn't realised they were this knobbly. Good fun in the mud and most of this tour was gravel so glad I had the cushion.

Gave me more confidence on the real thing. Should have drawn it all out but didn't really think of that. Lucky the wing it method worked out this time.

Impressive clearance from round stays.

It is fine man.
Looks good. I am excited to see what it becomes.
I have a lugged BB laying around I am considering modifying to become a big tyre/skinny tube frame as well.
My chainstays are oval tho, so I was going to fill them with pewter prior to bending to see if could get good results that way.

The 'lugged bicycle frame construction' book recommends using round stays as the best way for a novice to fit big tires. The clearance is a little tighter than ideal. If it is very heavy clay mud it can build up.

Keep us posted. Love a lugged frame but the clearance can be limiting. Be cool to see a good way around it.

I've done one frame with s bend stays and doing another now which'll have s bend on one side and a plate/yoke thing on the drive side.

Sounds cool. I've wondering about cutting it up to add some sort of plate/yoke. The fork has plenty of clearance so would be nice if the rear matched. Post how you do it, might copy you if it works out.

Took a while for the flat bar stock to be delivered but made this yoke this morning.

I think I’ll be able to cut it down a little more but want to leave plenty room to attach the rest of the stay to.

Sharper bend would have been nice but you gotta piss with the dick you got right?

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Nice, looks rad.

Bend looks alright, especially on something that thick. Once everything is brazed in place you won't even question it.

Need to get on and show the rest of this build.

Plan was for thru axles so knew I needed to up my game for holding it all square than just a bit of threaded bar.

First time using the lathe for anything other than drilling out a bit of pipe. Simple stuff still but good fun. My idea was to turn some spacers with grub screws to lock on to the axle to set the dropouts.

It held them apart nicely but they could still rotate. A bit of 5mm threaded bar through the mudguard eyelet helped enough to get them close enough.

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I used an axle and the dropouts as my understanding of what a dummy axle is was a little off. I didn't realise ihow much heat would get in to them.

It worked great for the first go and brazed on the chainstays fine. Then taking it off it went all funny and crumbled. I know enough about metallurgy to know I had fucked it. Another lesson learned the expensive way.

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Maybe for the best as I then came up with a better method to hold it. 2 lengths of pipe and our old friend threaded bar. Because of the two points it is held there was no movement in it.

Then on to brazing in the chainstays. Similar method to the first frame. I struggled with an accurate way to measure angle between seat tube and stay. With tapered stays and angle finder how do you know if you are measuring along the plane or the taper of it. Any pointers? Think I kinda eyed it as best I could but might have come out wrong as bb is a bit high now but I just try and forget about that.

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