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| This is the story of the construction of my road bike frame. At this point, I had built several experimental folding bicycles, and was quite familiar with filing, cutting and brazing cromoly tubes together. The Patereck Manual was initial guide to bicycle frame building. On the experimental bikes, I had to figure out many of my own solutions to the construction. which kept the projects really interesting. |
| I did not use any jigs. I would generally set up the tubes and braze them, one joint at a time, just like Mr. Patereck instructed. I had to cold-set a few of the joints I brazed. Alignment was set by using straight edges and squares, and by visually lining up tubes to make sure they were absolutely parallel. Also, I would set the work against the life sized drawing of the frame to compare for accuracy, mostly with the head, downtube, and seattube angles and lengths. I probably came well within a millimeter in all areas. |
| The tubing was Tru Temper 9-6-9 basic stress relieved cromoly, which I purchased from Henry James. I preferred that to the hardened tubes, because it's easier to file, drill, cut, and cold set. It's a bit heavier (the weight of the frame and fork when finished came out to 6 lbs), but using the harder tubes would only have saved a pound or so. Brazing was with an oxy-acetyline setup, using tanks I got from my local welding supply shop. Brass fillets were used to connect the main tubes. Silver was used on the fork and braze ons. Some small parts I got from J. Gaerlan. I was a regular reader (and occasional contributor) to the Framebuilders List. I knew what I wanted: long wheelbase, lowish bottom bracket, steeply sloping 1" top tube, lots of room for fenders with my caliper brakes, slack seat angle, and 135mm rear triangle. |
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