2/3rds a Road Frame

Tonight was all about the chain stays. First, I mitered the dropout ends and welded the dropouts on to the stays. Then, I cut the stays at the bottom bracket end on the mill.



I set the front triangle and the chain stays back in the jig for tacking and then after an alignment check of the rear end, on to welding the chain stays on.



And then we have 2/3 of a complete frame.




Seat stays are next and I am thinking on bending up a special set of seat stays for this frame.

Andrew's Front Triangle Welded

24 hours and a tank of Argon, and Andrew's front triangle is complete. First after tacking the frame in the jig, I check the alignment and mark the welding sequence on the frame.



Then on to welding it up...



A close up of the head tube welds.



And of the tricky pear-shaped down tube and bottom bracket joint.



And we have a welded front triangle.


The chain stays and seat stays will come in tomorrow and I will get started on the rear end.

Weekend Update - Andrew's Road Frame

Mo got the fork brazed together during the week and all that is left on it is some clean up, drilling the brake bolt hole, and then facing the crown race.



I worked on the front triangle today by first tacking and then welding up the seat tube / bottom bracket junction. I am pleased how it came together.





I then worked on mitering up the rest of the tubes for the front triangle. On Andrew's frame we are using a pear shaped down tube from Columbus, which will ride great, but takes a bit longer then a round tube to miter and fit. After mitering and cleaning up the tubes, I then drilled the water bottle boss holes and then put everything back in the jig to tack it.



I was able to get the front triangle tacked together, but was too low on argon to start welding it up. I will pick some up tomorrow and work on welding it up this week.

Three complete and ready for powder

Mo finishing filing on the brace for Cody's single speed.



And tonight we cut the seat tube slots for each of the frames two SS and Claire's geared 29er. All are ready for powder and paint. All three will get a new True Fab team paint scheme which Cody is working on the design.



I am really pleased with how the three curvy rear ends came out with there braces.



Here is an image of the materials for a new special project that I am going to be working on. I let you guess what it is going to be.



Next up we start cutting tube for Andrew's Road Bike tomorrow and we also should be getting Travis' geared 29er back from the powder coater soon as well.

File, File, File, Sand, Sand

Just plenty of clean up in the shop this week on the three frames, making dropouts go from this:



To this:



We also were able to get the two braces brazed in on Claire's frame.

The seatstay bridge:



The disc tab brace:



Continued brace and braze-on clean up planned through the weekend, oh what fun =)

Busy Weekend

We were busy in the shop over the weekend with Mo, Cody and myself all working in the shop on three frames. Two single speed 29er hard tails with Black Cat Swinger dropouts.



We brazed these dropouts in place and still have plenty of clean up to do on both frames.



Here is a view from the rear of the frames.



And here are the forks for the frames which I worked on cleaning up the tops of each



We also got all the braze-ons done on Claire's 29er


But still have the braces to braze in and then clean up. Cody also met with Anna and Andrew for a ride, to work on the design for Andrew's new road bike which is up next.

And so we begin

Although we are part-time builders, we do work in the shop every week. I hope to keep this blog updated with our current build queue and the weekly progress on frames from the shop.