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Category Archives: Building Bikes

Doug Fattic’s Class: Day 11

Thursday, February 18, 2010

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 [...]

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Doug Fattic’s Class: Day 10

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

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. [...]

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Doug Fattic’s Class: Day 9

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Today was a pretty good day. I got my main triangle all brazed up, filed my fork so a wheel sits in there correctly, filed and cleaned up one of my fillets. Fillet brazing is fun, and quite a bit easier than silver brazing. I did the first braze on the frame with Doug watching [...]

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Doug Fattic’s Class: Day 8

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

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 [...]

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Doug Fattic’s Class: Day 6 & 7

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Day six (Saturday) was Sabbath for Doug, so the shop was closed until sundown. I took this as an opportunity to go to a movie with one of my classmates. After the shop opened up I went in for some late night filing. This included easy things like the clean up of the edges of [...]

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Doug Fattic’s Class: Day 5

Friday, February 12, 2010

Today was a good day. There were no major screw ups, nothing was caught in an angry Bridgeport and torn up, no one hacksawed the wrong thing, all of our parts showed up (okay so maybe there was one screw up) and most importantly, I had a really good braze on one of my fork [...]

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Doug Fattic’s Class: Day 4

Friday, February 12, 2010

Today was a good day I think. I started out the morning with a few more practice brazes in an old bottom bracket. My brazing is still not as good as I’d like but I do seem to be improving. Doug and I were talking this evening and he said he thinks I’ll have the [...]

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Doug Fattic’s Class: Day 3

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Today is the day the Bridgeport and I became good friends, really good friends. As I said yesterday I’d completed the top tube miter on the head tube end. Today I started working on the top tube to seat tube miter. The formula that I mentioned yesterday was indeed correct. Basically the formula is this: [...]

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Doug Fattic’s Class: Day 2

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Today was the beginning of the real work I think. Two of us are still short parts, I don’t have lugs and a fork crown. Another class member Clifford does not have a bottom bracket and some other stuff. Hopefully my stuff arrives tomorrow, it has been shipped from England last week. Clifford’s appears to [...]

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Doug Fattic’s Class: Day 1

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Today was the first day of my time at Doug Fattic’s two week frame building class. Today was from what I can tell the most uneventful day as far as building, but interesting in terms of the history we learned and some of the things we learned about fitting. I’m a bit of an odd [...]

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