Hiding in the weeds...

Went for a walk last night with the doggies to the edge of the property and thought I'd share a piece of buried treasure...

I'd love to have the time to restore this old girl.  Maybe someday?

And a pic of my groundhog killing buddies, exhausted from a days worth of running through the fields...

Final coats of clear on Jared's Yo and lots of yard work today...I'll be back Monday evening to post with the start of Chad's frame.

cheers,

rody

photos by Mikey, thanks bro!

Jared's Yo and some Hippo flavored luving...

I spent the day in the paint booth trying to finish up some lingering projects before I dive into Chad's Ti road bike with earnest.

Jared's frame was up first.  With the seat tube replaced, I started laying down the colors on Jared''s Yo...he choose to go with a classic Aqua Fade finish. 

The heat and humidity was cooking today and made it difficult to move the solvents out of the paint, leaving small isles of dampness on the surface.  I had to flash off each layer in the bake box where the heat is dry and more like Arizona than Ohio :)  Once I got the pieces rotating through, I was able to get a groove on.

After a matte layer of clear, I layed down the decals...

I'm gonna let her sit overnight and spray the final clear coats in the morning when it's cooler.

While I had the Aqua colors in the gun, I moved on to another project.  Emmy had been on me because she is the only member of the family that does not have a Groovy frame.  Despite the fact that she's had a killer pink and purple Grove X and a classic EWR to tool around on, she desired something more her style and from Dad's shop.  Fortunately for me, she sized up perfectly for Carey's 650b race frame that I had built up for him to use until I could find time to build  and paint what we really wanted to make.  With his new frame in hand, I could dedicate the slightly used one for Em...with a little new paint of course. 

CAUTION...funky styling forthcoming

We started by drawing up some Hippos with 60's era flowers adorning thier cuddly bodies...

After running them through the plotter, weeding out the masking vinyl, and placing the transfer sheet, it's time to start placing them on the frame and fork...

You think of Hippos as being a big animal, but boy, it sure takes a lot of those buggers to get good coverage on round tubes :)

Once all the masking is down, I sprayed the blue color again to seal the edges and protect from the next color from bleeding through and making a lot of work on an already hot muggy day...

Now that the mask is ready to go, it's on to the next color,Yummy Lime sherbet.  After a quick flash, let's take off some of the negative masks and see what we've got...

A bit of clear and a flash off, then the decals go on...

A little personalization always makes it special...

Four coats of clear, an hour of rotating the frame and fork to prevent sags, and into the bake box it goes for a slow dry warm up...

Not bad productivity today for my first full day of vacation.  We had hoped to ride GOBA this year, but I'm just too far behind to spend a week away, so there should be plenty getting done in the near future.

cheers,

rody

Funny things you see on a ride...

Emmy and I got out on the tandem for a quick 10 mile ride and I could not help take a pic of this...

probably the funkiest chicken coop I've ever seen.  Maybe this is why organic "free range" chickens are so expensive, the rent on the condo is mucho denero.

rody

Restos in progress...

I banged out some resto work today on a couple of classic frames.

I replaced the seat tube in Jared's Yo Eddy, as the years had not been kind to it, leaving it looking like baby swiss cheese.  The lower half of the tube was removed, a new piece fitted, and an internal pressed support then placed and bullet welded into place to forever join the old and the new.  It's in the bake box now, awaiting a new coat of Aqua Fade to go with his new fork...

Don's Yo is also getting some new color, but is shedding it's old coat first... this one's sporting a new seat tube lower as well.

And Noah's Ritchey is lined up for stripping next with a similar ailment... she's hiding another three holes round back.

Kalten's been busy scraping off paint while I've been putting it on.  Here is the last of the retro frames getting it's personality applied. 

This one will be using a 1933 Plymouth color called Porcelain Green with a white front section and long darts transitioning in.  Let's lay on some paint, shall we?

Ohh, that's a retro color only seen on Hot Rods and antique bathtubs :)

Unwrapping the masking to reveal what lays beneath...

Tomorrow morning I'll finish airbrushing on the balance of the graphics and an old school "groovy" logo.

See y'all then,

rody

Jason's retro 29er...complete

I painted up Jason's frame quite a bit ago and have been awaiting both time and materials to complete it. Jay had desired a Ti fork to complement his new ride, but I honestly have not been impressed with the performance of available Ti forks in the past, most sacrificing durability and real trail performance for light weight.  I wanted to create a piece that was stiff enough for real trail use, tracking well without annoying flex and loss of steering control.  The unicrown design I created would maximize the surface area of the leg/steerer area, supporting the fork for both fore/aft flexion as well as lateral stability.  A constant radius leg would limit brake shudder and allow me to anticipate the amount of fork movement under stress.  The only hiccup was that the diameter and wall specs I wanted did not exist. That meant that I had to find a source for custom tubing without a huge minimum order. As I've worked with Joe S of Titanium Joe alot for bar and frame material and been pleased with his customer service, I pulled the trigger on the supplies.  With a custom order of tubing in the works, it was up to UPS to finally bring the final bits home.  Now 12 weeks later, the supplies have all arrived and the work begins...

The first order of business was to create a new fixture that would locate and hold the leg pieces of the fork for mitering.  As the unicrown fork has a compound miter, a cut that allows for fitting of the legs and steerer pieces together and creates the offset for the eventual rake of the fork, the fixture would need to allow for simultaneously cutting of both legs for symmetry and the ability to change the variability of the angle where the cutter meets the material.    I also needed the fixture to allow for in phase mitering of the dropout end of the legs, so that there is as little variance in the fit as possible.  With the design goals layed out, I made a trip to my local Al supplier and I began to machine up the pieces...

The process begins by finding the exact numerical references of the piece and locating the origin points.  Here I'm using an edge finder for reference...

I'll use these points with the digital read out to help me set up the piece before cutting.  Once in place, I can begin machining...

checking it against the plans..

working on the vice interface...

and through the magic of the blog, we fast forward to a dry run fit up to see that the fixture is put together correctly and works as expected on the horizontal mill...

Happy with the fixture in it's abiltiy to hold the pieces securely during mitering, offering the necessary adjustability, and ease of repeatability, it's time to start working on the ti fork.

I started off by cutting the material to it's rough lengths in the cold saw, a tool that flows liquid coolant over the material and runs at low rpm's so as not to heat or temper the tubing. 

The tubing cut to length, it is then deburred, filed, and cleaned before I head over to the bender.

I mocked up some steel legs first, taking note of the amount of material pull and the degree of bend necessary for my design.  Ti however, is another ball game.  Ti has an extrodinary amount of spring back during bending, so the amount of force and angle necessary to achieve the same bend radius as the steel was almost 1.5 times more.  Here's a finished Ti piece post bending...

Once bent up, I trimmed a bit of the inside material off the area to be mitered for better fit up, and threw the pieces in the mill...

With the legs cut up, I then turned my attention to the steerer tube, cutting it to length and then turning it true and deburring it for assembly.

One of the disadvantages of being one of the few builders who fabricate Ti forks is that there are not a lot of "off the shelf" pieces, crown races being one of them.  For this project, I pulled out my crown race material and after a bit of work in the lathe, have a finished piece...

Boring out the ID for a snug fit on the steerer...

turning down the OD for the press fit of the headset race...

and parting it off...

Wha-La! the finished crown race, ready for welding onto the steerer...

The final push for Jason's fork came Friday evening and I was focused on fabrication, not picture documentation, so you'll see I'm missing a few steps.  Everything was loaded into the fork fixture, purged with argon and then welded up...

And a few pics of Jay's completed build, looks quite dandy if I say so...

We finished up at 0230 in the morning and then took turns carving though the moon lit streets of down town, enjoying the cool wind and the startled looks from the local whino's who were surprised with our quick, quiet approach.

Jason had an opportunity to display the bike yesterday at the thrid Groovy Series race, appropriately so as the "bonus race" was a Klunker Classic.  Jay finished last, both because he chugged a beer at the start line while everyone else rode off, and because he gingerly carried his bike through the mud so as not to sully it on it's maiden voyage...what a premadona ;)

On a personal note, the last 8 weeks have been very difficult for me, as increased time requirements at the Fire Department have overwhelmed my life, limiting time in the shop and at home to mere hours at a time.  The pace I've been pushing has exceeded even my tolerance and as such, you've seen a slow down in shop related postings and email.  Christi has been answering email and phone inquiries to the best of her ability so the time I do have can be best used in moving projects forward.  It is my anticipation that manpower replacements and promotions will occur soon, so that the demand for personal overtime will diminish and life will return to a sembalance of normalcey for us.

rody