Bike From Scratch

I’ve been home a few weeks now and more time to reflect on Doug’s class and frame building. In the first post in the series I said I was not sure if I’d build more than one bike. I’ve answered that question with a resounding yes. While at times frustrating and certainly difficult I really enjoyed the frame building process. I’ve had a few friends ask about building them bikes, and I’ve decided that there are a few more bikes that I’d like for myself, so I at least have a road map in front of me as far as what to build. Since I’ve been home I’ve started collecting tools and I’m not too far from having what I need to build. Making the jump to full time professional isn’t something I’m considering at this time.

Overall Doug’s class was great, I really enjoyed my time there. It felt a lot like being back in college. Long days, powered by caffeine and moments of fun inside long days of work. Thankfully I took in more information much faster than when I was in college, something about older and wiser I guess. We all went home with unfinished bikes. It took me a long time to figure out that the class was less about the bike I was building then, and more about the bikes I’ll be building later. This bike is just the first of many. Now that I have the bike finished I’m quite happy with it, much happier than when I left class. When I think back on my frustrations during class there were two major sources. One of them could have been avoided all together with a bit more thought before class.

The first big frustration was the bi-laminate thing and how long it took us to figure out that we should just drop it.  Better planning before class would have fixed this. I could have a. made sure the lugs I had would work for the application I had in mind, b. ordered them sooner so we had them in time (or since Ceeway was out of stock order something else). I think that it would have been far better, from a frustration perspective to never have attempted the bi-laminate. That said I learned a lot about how to do it before we ditched the project. I am very happy to have gone through the process. On the other hand if we had just gone with a fillet brazed bike I’d have come home with a completed bike. I brought the head tube home that we started on for the bi-laminate project. So I have that to finish for another bike. I think I’ll wait until I have a jig to do that though. Since all I had to do was file when I got home I’m happy with the way it worked out.

My other frustration was the rear end, specifically chain stay attachment. Two of us had troubles getting things to line up properly post brazing and it was because we didn’t know (or retain) the process about how to maintain alignment during brazing. I am not sure why this happened, but it was something we both learned after the fact how to fix. In a way I’m grateful for this as we are much less likely to forget the correct process now. On the other hand we both spent a lot of time figuring out our problems. One upside of this is that we had quite the liveley dinner conversation one night about how to create a jig to do away with the problems we had. In both cases we had chain stays slide into the the bottom bracket during brazing, causing the rear end to be just slightly out of alignment. In both cases we fixed the issue and ended up with aligned frames, it just took a lot of work.

As far as the instructor, Doug is a fantastic teacher. He spends quite a bit of time figuring out how a student learns things, and does his best to adapt his teaching methods to that particular student. I saw this quite a bit in our class when I would look at how Doug  explained things to me, vs. how Doug would explain the same thing to Clifford. I do wonder how much I frustrated Doug as I tend to learn things through repetition and explanation, rather than demonstration. If I did frustrate him he hid it well. Another thing that I really appreciated is that Doug is a true craftsman. He cares very much about the quality of his work, and that of his students. With Doug I didn’t feel like there was a lot of “thats good enough” in order to hurry us along. We did not cut corners. Everything was done, and done correctly. Sometimes we resorted to using different fixtures to speed the process along, but we never sacrificed quality for time.I really appreciated this.

Other observations and things I’ve realized since I’ve been home. Doug has every tool in the universe. This makes prioritizing purchases to build a shop at home a bit of a challenge. The first purchases are pretty obvious; alignment table, torch setup, files. What comes after that is still a bit of a mystery. I’m working on the table and torch setup now. I’ve got files and most of the general hand tools covered as well as a work bench and vise. After I get the torch and table worked out I think I’ll be picking up things like lug vises (the next bike is going to be a lugged single speed). After that I’ll start to think about one of Doug’s fixtures and maybe a small mill. I’ve had a lot of contact with my classmates and Doug to help with this process. I think all three of us are well on our way to having some type of shop setup.

I’m quite happy with the experience, I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

Look what I made

Today was a good day. I’ve got a complete (ish) bike! The main task of the day was getting the seat stays attached. First I had to cut the slot for my seat post binder and take care of all that, and before that I had to ream the seat tube to take a seat post, and before that….. you get the idea. Lots of little steps to get to where I was going. So I started the morning reaming the seat tube and freaking myself out a little bit with the process. I stuck the reamer in a vise pointing up and then spun the bike around on it by its seat tube. Unfortunately I don’t think I have a picture of this, Doug took one though so hopefully I can get it from him.

The next task was to cut a slot for the seat tube binder. Pretty straight forward. Stick two blades in the hack saw, draw a straight line, go to town. Don’t stray off the straight line. When it was all said and done I had a slot in the back of my seat tube. It pointed out how much I really need to do some finish filing on the back of my seat tube as it looks a little goofy right now. That’s work for when I get home though.

Cutting the binder slot

Finally after a few other odds and ends I got to working on getting the seat stays into my bike. The first step is to miter the stay to meet up with wherever its supposed to go. In my case I’m doing a fast back to the binder so I had to cut the shape of the binder in the top of the stay. Doug as usual was a huge help here and showed me a mercifully fast way to do it. It took the other guys the better part of a day to get their stays ready to go for alignment, I think it took me on the order of an hour. Just a couple quick hits with a file (the attachment I chose was much less intricate than what Daniel and Clifford were doing) and cut to length. The real trick for me was to get the seat stays to put equal tension on the chain stays. It took a few adjustments with a file, but nothing major. After the miter was done I was off to alignment. The process involves taking a true wheel and checking for center, making adjustments, taking the measurement again and working it back and forth until you get it right. This feels like it took forever but I think I only really spent a few hours doing it. I was pretty wiped by the time I got here though, its been a long two weeks.

Doug did the braze on the top side because it was a bit much for me (lots of small areas). There really aren’t words to describe his skill. It was unreal to watch him manipulate so much heat and metal in such a small space. After I got the seat stays setup so I could braze the bottom I took off back to the house for a bit. A classmate had ordered pizza and it was a nice pick me up before going back out to the shop. After dinner I brazed up the seat stays. I’m using stainless plug in dropouts from henry james. I love the little silver ring and watching it poor out the bottom in one shot when it flows correctly. Very satisfying. After the stays were brazed I checked alignment and everything was as I’d left it. As close to perfect as my first bike will be I think, and well within the (mostly made up) tolerances that we were told about on the first day of class.

Drop out brazed

The last big task for me was to get my fork converted from a 1 inch steerer to a 1 1/8 inch. I hacked off most of the one inch, beveled the top and brazed on a bigger 1 1/8 inch tube. This was a little nerve-racking as there was a lot of metal to heat up and we were not quite sure if the silver ring I stuck in the top ever really melted the way it was supposed to. I added silver and flowed it up the joint to the best of my ability. After we called it good and the fork cooled down we could peak down the steerer tube and see that the silver had indeed flowed as it was supposed to. So all is good in fork land for me, although with this particular combination the fork weighs a ton. I don’t care much about weight, and as long as handling is not effected I’ll just leave well enough alone. I do have the capacity to throw a carbon fork in this bike and A/B them so if it works out to be terrible I have that as an option I guess. I think the fork looks dope though, and most carbon forks are a bit ugly for my tastes. I’m sure it will all work out.

As far as on a personal level I’m glad we’re nearing the end and I get to head home on Saturday. I’ve been worn down the last few days and I’m ready to get back home to my wife and son. I got to see a really cool sunset on my way back to the shop that was a bit of a pick me up this evening, which really helped me stay positive and get through the rest of the stuff I had to do. I’ve had a ton of fun and made some good friends. I’ve been blessed with my classmates. I’ve been told every class gets along but I’ve really enjoyed the company of Clifford and Daniel. I’ll be posting a postmortem on the class with a full review and such in the coming weeks, as well as updates on where I am with finish filing and painting, but I imagine since tomorrow is just braze ons and reaming I won’t do another update from Michigan.

Sunset on my way back to the shop.

Day 10, already, really? It feels like the pace has been picking up the last few days. I went from a pile of unconnected tubes on Sunday to a almost complete looking bike today. I had two missions today, a binder bolt for my bike, and getting my chain stays installed. Both were a success.

The day started out pretty slow going. I think all of us are feeling the lack of sleep and missing our families. The mood in the shop is jovial though and we are enjoying the time we have remaining. If you end up taking Doug’s class and staying in his parents place, the coffee pot is a gift from the class of Feb 2010, use it wisely.

This morning I got to work on getting my binder attached to the top of my seat tube. We propped it up against the bike using some square blocks on the alignment table. Then I tacked it in place using brass. After I was satisfied that it was straight and looked good I headed off to do a fillet braze for the bolt. This braze was a bit more fun that the main tube brazes because I got to do more shaping. The underside of the binder has to be kept smaller so my stays can attach underneath it. The top needs to be filled out more to avoid a really harsh edge. I’m trying to avoid any harsh edges / sharp corners up where at the top of the triangle. The braze went swimmingly, Herbie was around for the assist if I needed it and to provide instructions / advise on the look of the joint.

Binder attached, just needs some finish filing.

The next major task of the day was to attach the seat stays. I was offered the choice of using the Anvil fixture or using Doug’s method that he learned in England when he was studying there. Doug’s method is longer but involves little in the way of extra tools (in fact I’m building the tool I need to repeat this process at home while I’m here). The process involves a lot of measuring, and being paranoid I was triple or quadruple checking everything. After all was said and done I came out with rear dropouts that put the wheel about .5mm off of center. I can fix this with a bit of filing on one of the drop outs (or I could leave it alone as this is a perfectly reasonable amount I suppose). I suspect I’ll file it as it will bug me if I don’t fix it. I’m really bothered that I didn’t get the rear end exactly correct.

Since we had some trouble with this method the class members and I have been brainstorming about possible causes. The current theory is that when we tack in the second stay something shrinks or expands and contracts and “sucks” the stay in a bit further. We found out after the fact that Doug does a bit of adjustment during the tacking phase that we didn’t do…. More info for the next bike I guess.

Attaching seat stays

Not brazed up yet.

I ended the evening with a bit of filing on my head tube to top tube fillet and making sure that I was all set to go for seat stays tomorrow. First I’ll need to cut the seat post slot, and then I’ll get to mitering for the attachment to the binder. I suspect I’ll also be adding some braze ons as well. I need a derailleur hanger and a few water bottle bosses. Hopefully these will be pretty quick and drama free. The other big task for tomorrow is getting my fork converted from 1 inch to 1 1/8 inch steerer. I detect lots of filing in my future for this.

Frustrating and slow to backwards progress was the name of the game for two of us today. I brazed up the first part of my bi-laminate lugs. This went pretty well and all seemed good. I started putting the frame together in the fixture and it looked well. I noticed Doug making faces at it so I asked again what he thought and if I should ditch it and just fillet braze the frame. For the first time since we started this endeavor he changed his answer a bit and since I was already nervous I pushed the issue. My line of reasoning was basically could I do it by myself or would Doug have to take the torch and bail me out. After confirming we decided that there would probably be quite a bit of bailing out and I get the feeling that Doug wasn’t exactly sure how to handle the bi-laminate with tubes smaller than the lug opening. I suspect this is one of those things he would figure out on the fly, but would be made more difficult trying to explain to me while I was brazing and he was doing the figuring out.

The beginning of the end for the head tube.

So we decided to switch, the existing head tube went in a box, and I pulled out the head tube I brought with me and cut it to length. We had to switch the seat post I had as well to an externally butted tube. The tube that was already brazed to my bottom bracket needed a lug at the top tube / seat tube junction to function correctly. I also had the option of creating a sleeve but the time and work this would take felt overwhelming and I decided to go with the externally butted sleeve.

So we had to remove the existing seat tube from the bottom bracket. This was done by putting a bunch of scrap parts (bottom bracket shells) on a wire loop and inserting the loop through the bottom bracket to add weight. We then heated the whole joint and waited for the shell to fall off. One of my classmates and I didn’t have much luck getting this to work but Doug came back to the shop and made the magic happen. It was good to learn how to undo a joint. So I guess there was a positive side to the exercise.

I brazed the new tube in by myself and that went pretty well. I was on a mission to at least be back where I started in the morning. I feel a lot better about silver brazing. I also did a practice fillet by myself. I learned some things about speed control and when to fill. This one looked no so great but had some good sections towards the end. I think I’ll do a bit better on the next practice one which I hope to do in the morning.

The other thing I did today was align my fork blades. This took out some of the extreme problems that I mentioned yesterday. It’s still a bit crooked but can be fixed with a smaller amount of filing than I was anticipating, so all is not lost.