First, let's start off with the 953 frame. Here's how it looks today, but it's going to change slightly. The customer decided to go for etching in the logo in the downtube instead of the black decals shown here. It will also be getting a stainless headbadge (see below).
My headbadges finally came in. Actually, they're just stainless letters, but I make 'em
into headbadges. To the left is what the raw letting looks like. These can be brazed right onto the head-tube, or brazed to a stainless backing to make a more traditional looking badge.To the right is what the final product looks like when brazed onto a backing and curved to match the headtube.
Cranked out another bedframe as well this past weekend. This one is a little different from the one I made for myself. The headboard is styles differently, and the frame comes apart into smaller sections (the house
it's going into has a tough corner at the top of a set of stairs, so it needed to be reasonably compact). Once again, I like the look, industrial, but not overly so. 
The frame is all 2" square tubing as usual, but the internal tubes of the headboard are 1" square. The two side beams are bolted to the headboard, and the foot beam is bolted to the two sides so the whole thing
comes apart into 4 pieces. The finish is my usual black oxide coating hand rubbed into the steel, then clear lacquer over it to give it some shine and prevent any rusting. I like that finish because you can still see the shininess of the metal below, but it's nicely darkened. Looks much better than paint. Someday I should try it on a bike frame just for fun.I've got one more like this to make, then hopefully an entertainment center. I think I'm going to be adding a page to my regular website with some of this kind of stuff on it for sale, so if anyone is interested, let me know. Doing some occasional projects like this is a fun diversion of frames once in a while.
I'm putting the final details into a nice little sport tourer frame this week too. Once I have that done, I'll probably have some time to crank out a couple more Route 29'er frames. busy, busy, busy!
bbbb
5 comments:
Looking great Doub-B.
Figures, you style the headbadge *after* our bikes are a done deal. Always works that way. heh!
At least I know one thing you'll be doing when we first arrive out there for good...
B is Braze
O is for On
B is for Badge, on our bikes.
That is all.
;-)
-Me
Bob,
Looks nice!
Question, do you have any concerns about any non-polished finishes (etching, sandblast, brushed)promoting corrosion?
A concern of mine is that 953 is susceptable to corrosion from salt water. That makes me think of sweat (even at this time of year), and the possibility that it will sit longer on a rough surface.
Any thoughts?
By golly that is a fancy 10 speeder that some lucky racer is getting! If I didn't know any better I'd say that was Titanium with fancy Titanium lugs there. You would have to be careful with a bike like that. I'd be sick to my stomach if it ever got a ding or a scrape. If it was mine I would only ride it when it was nice out - I'd be nervous to get it yucky. How did you glue the head badge on? Is that a carbon fibre crankset? It looks like it to me.
Rick, I spoke with Reynolds quite a bit about this as the customer had the same concern. They have assured me that the corrosion resistance should be fine to sweat. The only issue is leaving the frame in a bare state aftering being blasted by a media that could corrode. They specifically said the only issue they have actually had reported with corrosion was frames blasted with aluminum oxide and left. The embedded particles of blast media were suceptible to rusting. Hence the reason this frame was finished with glass bead basting then scotchbrite, no metallic particles to imbed, no rust.
Hope that answers your questions. There's a lot of what I consider mis-information floating around about the material coming from sources who don't know much about it.
Bob
Thanks for the update.
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