Team Euro cross

I'm pretty happy with the way this one came out. It is bound for Shillington, Pa. and the owner of a bike shop there. I hope he likes it.
My trademark wavy gussetts are easy to see in this photo. They are a bit more work but they personalize the frame and extend the life at the same time . Tig welds are really tiny so any kind of re-distribution of stress away from critical areas of the frame seems like a good idea.
All the bends back here were done by me with my 22 year old bending forms , mostly used for raking forkblades but useful for rear stays as well. I have another set of forms for bridges.
I shoot details of the welds a lot but they seldom come out this clearly. You can see in intimate detail the bead and the heat affected zone. I hope they pass your inspection.

Coupler frame painted

It isn't often that I send out a frame to Colorado for paintwork but it is always worth it-the results speak for themselves. Spectrum powdercoating is probably the top at what they do....put on a durable powder basecoat and lay on nice graphics. They also do an excellent job of masking where it is needed. This frame is aready with its owner as of today. It will get a Campagnolo 11 spd. gruppo and also has a matching steel fork and fenders painted to match.

Old and new

Here are two examples of forks that I built earlier this month. One has a modern Pacenti MTB crown, the other has the original crown where Kirk Pacenti got the idea for his modern version. While the old crown has really nice lines, the new one is definitely an improvement structurally and is a lot easier to work with. It's pretty funny that the two crowns were made almost 30 years apart , while the forks were built on the same day.

Here's what I built while teaching the class

At UBI the instructor has to build a frame along with the students. The frame I chose to make is A 'big-tire road frame' ,something that is becoming increasingly popular with my customers. Sure, it will see some dirt but it isn't a 'cross bike. It will have long reach road calipers and have a matching steel fork and fully look like your average steel road machine but it should have no problem taking 700x30 Michelin Jet tires. I'm hoping to get it built up while the dirt is still dry in the forest.

Make way for summer tig class, 2010

The last three years now I have been teaching the tig welding framebuilding class at UBI in Ashland. Here's a few photos from the two weeks where the students and I sweated through an intensive program that included welding, designing and metalworking. The result ? A completed frame after two weeks. This is quite a transition for the folks that have no experience-going from zilch to first frame and a grasp of the work that goes into something that most of us take for granted.....our bicycle frame. I can't say enough about the professionalism and great ideas in this program at UBI and am very happy to be part of it.

Wishbone road frame, painted