Sorry to be a bit lax on the posting, but I've been cramming every hour full since last Thursday...here's what's been shaking.
Thursday I built another 4 box crown forks and two special order bars to round out the fabrication for the week prior to hitting the paint booth. I was starting to get a bit cross eyed looking at the weld arc all day long.
Friday I was all set to pick up the dropouts from the CNC house when I got a disturbing email..."unfortunately, we cannot produce the part, the guys on the floor feel it is too complex to program". WTF???? That took me by surprise, as all the DXF, IGES, and pdf files to show the prints were in hand, heck, I've made dropouts like this on my manual mill. Wish they would have told me a week and a half ago when they said "No problem"...argh! That sent me into a tailspin for a minute til I called up Brian Lenz at Lenz machine, a great little family shop just 5 minutes down the road from me. Brian has two inhouse water jets, three CNC machining centers, and a host of beautifully maintained equipment. A few hours looking over the info with Brian and he was off to program the cut paths. Dropouts will be here this week for sure, thanks Brian!
Saturday was spent in the shop working on stripping some restos to prepare for paint in the next week or so. Not flashy or fun, but necessary.
Sunday was the long anticipated Mohican Forest race. The day dawned cold but clear, and soon the sun rose to bring the thermometer up to a tasty 55 degrees. With one of the largest turnouts I've seen for an OMBC race, this event was really a celebration of the years of advocacy, trail work, and promotion that the Mohican/Malabar club and Ryan have worked at.
The 26 mile course was fast and a bit loose due to the leaves and pine needles that fall has brought down. Straight out of the gate, Dave Walker and Steve Twining were setting a firey pace that would not wane until the finish line. Jeff, the soul Groovy rider there this day (Kalten was home sick in bed), had the ride of the day, keeping just seconds behind the front duo on his single speed. Despite his best efforts, Jeff ended up just a minute out from the two leaders at the end of the day...if I could just have convinced him to throw some gears on, who knows how the top three would have mixed it up. In an almost photo finish, Steve bested Dave at the line by mere inches...what a fun day!
Dave and Steve exiting the woods to cross the river before heading up the LONG single track climb...
Mile 24.5...Jeff returning to the ground after sailing in the air on the descent...
Today, I made the best of my time, throwing some powder on a fork and two bars and doing some fabrication. I had hoped to be working on Steven's frame, but until his dropouts make it here, I moved on to it's twin; a retro inspired frame with a Rohloff drive using Paragon sliders.With the front end all welded up, I began fitting and mitering the rear pieces. Here I've just completed slotting the chainstay with a dual slitting saw and am removing the remaining uncut material left from the custom spacer.
After a couple clean up strokes with a file, checking for fit...
I mitered up the chainstays to a tight tolerance then moved on to the seat stays. Once slotted, I began mitering the SS/ST joint...
All fit up as the sun was setting in the window, the lights are ready to come on to keep working into the night...
cheers,
After a couple clean up strokes with a file, checking for fit...
I mitered up the chainstays to a tight tolerance then moved on to the seat stays. Once slotted, I began mitering the SS/ST joint...
All fit up as the sun was setting in the window, the lights are ready to come on to keep working into the night...
cheers,rody
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