Scott's Ho fork coming together...

As I wait for CNC metal products to churn out Steve's dropouts, I worked on getting Scott's box crown fork done. Yesterday I cut up some crown sections to do a few forks...one for Scott, one for a Wicked, one for a custom urban bike that Warwick at Thylacine Cycles is designing, and one extra for the parts drawer. I prepped and welded up two of the steerers/crowns and got to work on finishing up Scotts, a box crown fork that will have both discs and canti's with removable posts.
Setting up the fork fixture...since this fixture is so old, I did not make it to have indexed dropout slots, so I use a parallel and rotate the dropouts forward so that they are both in contact with it's face, insuring they are in phase. I suppose sometime I need to mill a new axle post, but it always comes down to having the time :)

The legs are mitered in the mill at an angle to match the dropouts and then I turn the legs down to length in the lathe...a nice way to insure that my end stays nice and true while taking down the length. All nice and tight...

I tack the fork all the way around then take it out of the fixture and use a dedicated wheel that I know is dished and true to check the fork's alignment...any lateral differentials need to be addressed now while the parts can still be separated and corrected. It looks super duper!

Back into the fixture for welding and wha-la, here we go...stitched up nice and tidy.

Next I milled down the disc tab to fit the fork's leg...

Checking the fit in the setting sunlight, no gaps makes for a strong joint...

The tab is tacked in 6 places then I run the beads...trying to get an entire side of the tab in one pass is tough as your torch angle needs to be constantly adjusted while continuing to move forward and adding filler material, keeping the correct heat distribution between the .035" tube wall and the .25" disc tab.

One more part to go...I brought the canti bosses along in the VW bus.

With the fork all together, it's time to cut the crown race to fit the ID of the King race. I use the lathe, hitting it with the tool post first then using a finish file to soften the edges.

A nice white paint job and this one is ready to go to it's new home.

cheers,

rody