Paul is the proud new parent of a 4lb. 8oz frame. It’s headed off to powdercoating on Friday for a coat of RAL6011 green. (As an aside, i learned that Ventana powdercoats frames in their shop for a reasonable cost! They’re 80min away from me whereas my current place is ‘only’ 60min away so until I start charging for frames I’m going to keep with the more local option. They also charge more than the guy I go to now but they also specialize on bike frames, so I’m pretty excited to go with them someday.)
So as I round out frame 20, I’m happy to say that the frames are turning out better, faster, and easier but I still make mistakes and struggle on the same parts of each build, namely the rear triangle and when I use bent tubes. The bent tubes and their new miter angles give me a headache. It’s a guessing game for me since the curve of the tube usually gets clamped in the MTMF fixture making any number that BikeCAD gives inaccurate. I’ve turned to eye’ing the angle while placing the tube up to the frame in the fixture, drawing a rough line on the tube with a sharpie or holding up a protractor, and then doing a few approach cuts and filing to fit. Time intensive for sure but I’m getting pretty good at eyeing the angle.
On this frame I went through a ‘trial’ set of seatstays because I bent the top bend into the seat tube too much. Why? Well, I didn’t re-draw my drawing and tried to use the same drawing as for my last frame. Different effective seat tube angle and chainstay length so the bend had to be a bit different.
But in the end, the frame turned out really nice in my humble opinion. The braze-ons for this frame are different than i’ve done for others – hoops for the rear brake and stops for the rear derailleur underneath the top tube, hoops on the underside of the seatstays to hide the cables from view more. I’ll post more pics when it’s painted and has decals. Still waiting for the new decals to show up, but they’ll be so sweet. Three frames to ship out in the next week or two and that’ll make for a good photo shoot.
OK, now I’m drooling ! Can’t wait to give this a go! Ordered the rest of the build today….fairly modest, but long lasting in a bombproof sort of way. The frame is beautiful as it is, I really think the color and the fork will set this on fire…! After the build I’ll get some good photos for your portfolio…I know this one will be sweet. Man, Thanks!
Have been to a course in Golden (Juvenile detention facility grounds) that you may already know about…a permanent course. And Lee Waldman’s baby. Had a clinic there Monday w/20+ riders, and tonite the faithful, burning in the course. It’s real cyclocross, nothing terribly fancy, and enough natural deviations to make 8 minute laps seem fast …..lots of twists and turns to make it near impossible to remember which is which. Then we go at it in reverse….I’m not a very good cyclocross racer, but I love riding that stuff, and getting it right every once in awhile sure makes up for the blunders…..well, seems to. Rained inches here tonite, couple of hours before sunset,so the sky was a yellow haze coming out of the storm ….freaky gorgeous.
Paul http://www.crosspropz.com 720.203.3731