set

fork is done! WOW !!! much different than the frame. Lots of meat to get warm and no real visual cues to indicate full flow. The bending jig worked well as did the fixture. The blades moved around some but no too bad. Maybe .05" was the worst and that was side to side. I am working on brazing sequence to minimize distorion but really a good first attempt. Flowing silver is tough especially when I am chasing a heat and gravity around the crown. Going through the process is really the only way to see what happens. I dumped too much in but it is stout. Lot of cleanup but stout none the less. What you see on the bending jig is a '170 lb.' rake. No lever just me balancing on top of the blade on top of the table. The blades do get stiff in a hurry! The rake actually came out to be right on. still though I need a lever. something to compound with a roller and a hoop to pry under. Pinned the drops, solid! drilled vent/ drain holes. Doing all of this I wonder about fillet brazing forks. That is alot of work and to keep everything aligned?? I will stick with lugs for now. crown and steerer went together then drop outs and blades. then glued the two together.

Time for a fork

Yippy!!! to finish the frameset. Being the chronic knucklehead that I am, I forgot to order a steerer tube. This one was made the hard way... It started life as a 1" solid bar of 4140. lots o' chips! anyway.. the big ass post in the back of the fork jig is to hold in the vice. eventually I will modify it to fit a duty made, multi purpose floor mounted post. It can rotate 180 deg. to make the best of gravity. I might make anouther after using this one. The plate is good, I just dont know if I have enough travel in the drop bracket to do all needed rakes. The bending jig has two radii.. 13" and 15". that is easy to change ( make a different base ).. I just created a curve based on the plans for this one frame. Stops will go into the "V" groove for consistency.

Its been a while

Good front triangle this time and good rear triangle too! Now for the fork... I have not yet decided what I think about the wishbone setup. I like the looks. Either a person does or they do not. The traditional method of attaching the stays to the ST lug is a level less of fit work. It is way easy to cut the transition from the bone casting to the ST lug too short. Which is what happened here. I would have liked the stay to reach the lug. I am working on designing a wishbone lug that does the same thing but spreads the load out more. This will be fine for this frame as the ST is a Verus and thick. The seatpost will carry the load. although the constant hammering will make a set that will bind over time. I think... First frame being sent into the wilderness. It is built for my wingman Hagen so it will be close so I can observe.