Final Day

(3 posts have been added, so you may have to start below)

Today I finished construction on my first frame. 

The frame underwent through an incredible amount of heat, so tubes that used to be parallel may now be slightly deformed and need adjustment. Cutting Ti by hand proved to be extremely tiring, even with the high speed steel cutting blades.

First Head tube was reamed, and then faced. The head tube material is slightly thicker and longer than advertised, so some material must be taken out to allow the headset cups to fit. It must then be faced to provide 2 parallel surfaces. 

Next BB was re-threaded, which proved to be the most difficult task of the day, as all the heat on the BB shell rendered it ovalized and in need of major torquing to run the reamer through the BB shell.

Next BB was faced:

Seat tube was then reamed for correct 27.2 mm seat tube. Hole was then cut through seat tube collar and set on bridgeport where vertical slit was cut to finish the seat tube collar area:

Tiny hole on the underside of BB shell was drilled. Usually it would hold the cable guide for cables routed under BB shell, but I'm drilling a small hole just to allow water to escape the frame.

Lastly, frame was aligned. Frame was installed on BB, and spacer was placed just touching the head tube. Long alignment tool was installed in head tube to exaggerate any differences. Alignment measurements were then taken at seat tube near BB, top of seat tube and then taken along top and bottom of head tube. 

Ti is really too strong a material to really deform on the alignment table, so it's not really recommended as the strength of the frame is severely compromised in making a perfectly straight frame.

Jim sort of dismissed the importance of frame alignment. While most bike manufacturers would claim to be within 2 mm of frame alignment, the reality is most frames are usually way off of this claim. The mechanic's class used to test alignment on their own frames until guys with $6k Colnagos suddenly did not want to ride their bikes once they realized how off their frames were. While the frame is the chassis to which all components are attached to, most of those components (wheels, tires, cranks) are held to nowhere near the same quality standards of frames.

Jim's bike show here was off by .5 mm, which is really impressive and shows his mastery of his craft. My bike was about 4-5 mm off, but both the top of the seat tube and top of head tube were off the same amount to the frame. This means the head tube and seat tube are perfectly aligned to each other, but slightly misaligned to the BB shell to a very negligible amount.

I didnt have time to really clean the bike up before packing it up and shipping it off, so you'll have to check back later for photos of the finished frame. 

Finishing a Ti frame is pretty simple, as it does not need to be painted. The order of finishing the frame is:

1. Bead blast frame very, very lightly to remove any oxygen contamination residue. Some people leave the frame in this condition, but scratches will show.

2. Scotch brite frame. Clean with acetone

3. Frames or part of frames can then be primed and painted if desired.

4. Decals are applied.

5. For a non painted Ti frame, lemon pledge or Armor all is all thats needed to keep the finish of Ti beautifully clean.

I hope you were able to maybe learn a little bit about framebuilding and gain an appreciation for what goes into making a bike. Perhaps more importantly, you've learned a little about frame geometry and can be a more informed consumer when looking to buy a new bike or frame. 

I look forward to post photos of finished frame along with the built up bike! 

Day 11- Brazeons

Today all of the welding was completed, as I added the seatstay bridge and all of the brazeons.

First rear wheel spacing was again checked. Welding the seatstays brought the axle spacing to 127 mm. However, the seat stay bridge still needed to be welded on, so an axle of 137 mm was installed, bridge was mitered, and breather holes were drilled in the seatstays and bridge. Because I'm building a cross bike and not a road bike, I did not have to worry about the bridge being the exact dimensions for dual pivot road calipers. I gave myself plenty of clearance for a 35 mm wheel + extra mud clearance.

It would have actually been really nice to scotch-brite and acetone the entire frame after this step, as this is the "purest" the frame would ever look. If I was building a fixed gear bike with no brakes, I could have done this, but the reality is geared bikes that need brakes need all sorts of Braze- ons to host the various cables that make the bike shift and stop. 

Holes were drilled for water bottle cages. You typically want to only add what you absolutely need, and while you'll never run water bottle cages on a cross course, I wanted the option of having two bottles for riding singletrack, or when I decide to take my cross bike on road rides.

Brazeons were then added and were welded to frame. All of the brazeons came with a little lip around them, which served as a filler material and made welding alot easier. Clamps were used to hold brazeons in place for tacking and welding.

Brazeon clamp for single cable stop:

Clamp on for downtube shifter cables:

My brazeons would be somewhat different than Jim's road bike. I would be routing my derailleur cables along the top of the bike, which would then require running single cable bosses down the seat tube (for the front derailleur) and 2 single cable bosses down the back of the seat tube:

I would start out with a fixture to attach my cantilever brakes.

Welded bosses:

Rear of frame with cantilever brake boss welded on:

Finished bike! (...sorta)

Tomorrow, final prep on the bike will be done, and frame will be checked for alignment.

Day 10- Seatstays

Today Seatstays were constructed. Except for the finished seatstays, I only have photos from Jim's road bike example as I needed to move sort of quickly today, as I'm still behind.

Seatstays were measured for rough cut length. Seat stays were rough cut (rough cut on an angle for the seat tube intersection.

Chainstay to dropout length was mitered. Stays were then assembled in this jig and mitered at the measured angle. Tubes were set to touch ends in jig and were progressively mitered, checked on the bike and if it was still too long, jig was repositioned to bring in stays closer together and was re mitered until desired length was reached. 

This was probably the most aggravating part of building the entire bike, and one of the hardest things to weld. Welding under the seatstays provided to be quite a challenge, as the extreme acute angle providing much welding grief. 

Finished seatstays with wheel:

Day 9- Tuesday

On a completely unrelated note, I saw this disturbing article on velonews today about their editor in chief succumbing to the so called "fixed" Mavic R-Sys wheel design:

http://www.velonews.com/article/93054/a-shattering-experience---a-post-recall-r-sys-wheel-failure

These were the wheels that initially came on my Super Six that I sold as instantly as I got the bike. Something about carbon spokes and collegiate racing just didn't seem to make sense to me. While I've always been a big Mavic fan and love my Kysrium SL's, carbon spokes just seem like a bad idea. Even after supposedly "fixing the problem" with carbon weave in different directions, looks like I made the right choice.

Today I designed and welded on the chainstays. While the bike looks mostly done, Jim said this marks the 50% point. While UBI claims no prior welding experience is necessary, I've found everyone who didnt have prior welding experience (including myself) is running about a day late of where Jim is at, which is alright as long as we don't fall any further behind. If I fall any further behind a day's teaching, Jim has said he'll have to hop in to help catch us up. While I wish they planned in just a little more time, I fully agree that I'd rather have a bike 90% done by me thats rideable, than an expensive wind chime that was completely done by me.

I drew out the chainstays last night in CAD, and moved them over to full scale hand drawing this morning (step by step instructions given in longer technical section).  

Tube was oriented to provide maximal tire clearance (In my case to fit 35mm tires and a little mud in worst case scenario). Chainstays were then mitered by the dropouts with outside face facing up:

After mitered tube sides were prepped and tiny breather holes were drilled into the dropouts, chainstays were then situated in the jig and the outside measurement of the chainstays were taken at the point they would be welded to the BB. The jig was slid up and down until desire distance that was previously calculated was reached.

Tubes by dropouts were then tacked in jig, removed and then welded.

Chainstays were reinstalled in 132 mm axle and installed on the horizontal drill press, where the BB shell miter length- 1/1000th of mm was taken off to allow the miter to slightly wrap around the bottom of the miter. 132 mm axle is used as welding has a tendency to pull chainstays inward to desired 130 mm.

These tubes were then prepped, holes in the BB were drilled, and the entire frame was again tacked on the frame jig, this time along with the chainstays, where they were tacked. Frame was then removed from jig and chainstay welding was then completed.

The requisite "crotch shot":

At this point various tools were used to check for frame alignment. Amazingly, distance was found to be perfectly centered and at 130 mm. BOOYAH!

Another tool was used to measure the relation of the chainstays in relation to each other. It looks like this:

Initial reading showed right chainstay slightly above left chainstay, which would make wheel lean to the left. 

Right chainstay was yanked down pretty hard, stretching it past its yield point. Thankfully, frame was just barely off. Many bike frames meet their death on the frame alignment table at bike companies where your bending tubes to within 15% of their breakage point. This is one obvious advantage of custom built frames where there is much greater precision.

All done:

Long Technical Section: Designing Chainstays

1. Draw Rear Axle Spacing. This distance will measure the distance from the inside of your dropouts. Find the midpoint of this line and draw a perpendicular line. Chainstay length is measured off of this vertical line. This measures center of BB to axle. I have temporarily used a chainstay length of 415 mm.

2. BB is drawn. We are using a BB diameter of 40 mm and a BB shell width of 68 mm. Back of BB edge to axle distance is calculated (415-20 mm= 395 mm). This will be your miter distance.

3. Wheel radius is calculated. 700 cc wheels= 622 mm diameter, so 311 mm radius + largest tire you imagine using (35 mm) for a grand total of 346 mm. Tire width is drawn in front of this line.

4. Dropout diameter were measured to be 40 mm. BB edge to chainstay needs to be 5-7 mm; I'll be going 6 mm. A second point is drawn both 19 mm to the left of that 6 mm point and 19 mm to the right of the dropout edge. These four points outline your chainstays. 

5. If this was a road bike, the tire would be closer to the axle and the tire would be alot smaller. This would usually give you enough clearance, so then the inside angle would be taken and subtracted from 90 to get your miter angle for the chainstays to drop outs. However, as you can see, for my cross bike, straight stays will not provide the clearance. I can play with the Chainstay length by moving the BB shell closer and further away from the axle. 

I can also choose to use slightly bent chainstays and after making this drawing full scale, I can lay the bent chainstays right over the drawing and position them to allow maximal tire clearance by leaving the second S curve right over the tire diameter. This leaves more than enough clearance (including mud accumulation), so I'm good to go.

Day 8- Frame welding begins...

Today I welded the entire front triangle together. 

First, BB and seatstay were prepped, BB was drilled for airhole, and was tacked using the BB failure jig and then finally welded:

BB/seatube and headtube were set up in set up frame jig. Downtube and top tube were tested for fit, and breather holes were marked out and drilled. Breather holes allow argon to flow throughout inside of entire frame. Tubes were reinstalled in jig, tacked and some welding was done. Since tacking was done off of the metal table, welding wire needed to be attached to steel part of jig (or frame) to keep the piece grounded. Tacks were initially applied on all obtuse angles, and then acute angles.

Frame was taken out of jig, and was then welded on the table. For each tiny weld made, I rotated from the four welds (Top tube/head tube Drive side to BB/seat tube non drive side, to Seat tube/ top tube drive side... etc) This helps keep the frame aligned and helps keep the frame from pulling itself apart and making it impossible to weld the other sides.

All of the welds weld a mitered tube to a thicker non mitered tube. The head tube, Bottom Bracket and seat tube collar make it alot easier to weld the two tubes together. The one exception to this rule is where the Down tube meets the seat tube, which butts two thin walled tubes together. You can see the results of applying the same welding force to that joint...yikes.

I've gotten alot better at patching holes, (and avoiding them in the first place), but after only making the hole bigger in my first attempt to patch it, I deferred to Jim's expertise in remedying the situation and filling it so I could finish the BB/seattube/downtube welding.

Seeing how most of the people new to welding did the exact same thing, I didn't feel too bad about it.

All better and finished:

Finished head tube:

The other side:

omg... finished front triangle:

While not finish prepped, I may have found a future worthy portfolio shot:

Already, I've got framebuilding groupies vying to help make my portfolio as attractive as possible:

Assos bib model, you can lend two hands...

Alright, enough "bike porn" of sexy welds for one day... check back tomorrow for chain stays.

Short Technical Section:

1. Tubing used for this Titanium frame is all single gauge 3/2.5 Titanium Tubing. Titanium is never found in its pure form in the environment. Instead, the metal must be extracted from other compounds, such as rutile ore and ilmenite. This extraction process is difficult and expensive, and is one of the reasons why titanium is so costly.

3/2.5 Ti means means there is 3% Aluminum and 2.5% Vanadium in the tubing with the remainder being Titanium. Filler wire is 6/4 Titanium (6% aluminum, 4% Vanadium, rest Titanium). 6/4 Ti is alot stiffer, so theoretically the welds are actually some of the strongest points on the bike. 6/4 Ti can not be used for frame tubing as it is only produced in sheet form, and would have to be welded along its seam after being rolled.

For more information about Titanium, see Seven Cycles site for some really good information about Ti-

http://www.sevencycles.com/buildingbike/techsupplement/ti.php

2. It took me some time, but I finally understand the concept behind welding (and helps begin explain Friday's fiasco)

A) The welding torch is angled along two orientations. It faces the direction your moving, with the filler coming from the opposite direction. 

B) Welding a thinner, mitered tube to a thicker non-mitered tube, you want to focus the weld blast more on the thicker tube. This is done by angling the torch below 45 degrees rotated around the mitered tube's axis:

Alot of the skill involved with welding depends on maintain this angle as you rotate around the mitered joint. Just moving your hand in the direction of the weld leads you to aim the torch tangent to the mitered joint instead of rotating it around the mitered joint's axis. 

If this diagram was real welding, you might aim the torch slightly towards yourself at the angle show, and flick your wrist upward as you traveled down the side of the tube.

It also helps to begin your welding "puddle" on the thicker surface and weld not directly on the joint but favoring the thicker, non mitered tube.

Also, keep your your tungsten tips sharp and free of Ti.

Day 6,7- Days Off

Technically every day has been a day off, but I've actually discovered frame building to be alot more complicated than I ever imagined. Today I spent much of the day updating these blog posting. 

I also wandered a bit about Ashland, which can only be described as a little slice of heaven on earth. Ashland is located near the California border.

Ashland is home to about 21,000 residents. By comparison, my hometown of Syosset has approximately the same population. However, the city has many cultural offerings that one would expect from a much larger city, and Ashland offers just about everything one would want from a major city.

Ashland is home to the Oregon Shakespeare festival, which presents presents 750-800 performances of eleven plays in three theaters from February through October each year. Three to five of those plays are Shakespeare plays. I attended Music Man on Sunday night, which was excellent, and have tickets for Don Quixote on Wednesday.

 The OSF has led the economy to be primarily based on tourism and the service based industry, with over 100 restaurants, a movie theater, and several art galleries in town. A bartender told me that its actually become difficult finding a job in this town unless your in the service based or medical profession. Once a day I've tried eating at a place in town and the food has all been excellent. I was hoping to try a different brew every night I've been here, but have really started enjoying Caldera's Amber, which is actually brewed in Ashland.

The town is fiercely independent, and with the exception of the grocery store, (Safeway), every shop, restaurant and business in this town is independently owned. Attempts by major corportions to start in Ashland has been met with major resistance, and none survived for long.

The town was also very forward thinking in their creation of a 100 mile park in 1908 called Lithia Park, designed by John McLaren, the designer of San Francisco's Golden Gate Park.

People here are very liberal, so much that they think Seattle is a bunch of neo-conservative Nazis. My kind of town. They are also really big into conservation and recycling, but this does not surprise me for a state that features a tree on their license plate. 

What a creative use of Christmas lights:

Similar to all of small town America I visited last summer, what I've found most interesting about Ashland is how nice and trusting the people have been. 

Example #1- Just approaching a crosswalk will make people slow down to allow you to pass, instead of speeding up to gun you down

Example #2- I rented some movies at the local video store. When I asked if they needed to see some idea or for cc information, the owner replied-  " Not needed- I trust that you'll bring it back." On top of that, the night drop off box was in fact a store window big enough for just about anyone not an elephant to crawl through.

Example #3- Actual sign outside of a store:

Overall, Ashland could be compared to a much cooler version of the town of Huntington (for those reading from Long Island), or a better comparison would be Flagstaff, Arizona (except Ashland is built in a valley, while Flagstaff is built on top of the mountain. I imagine its also pretty similar to Portland. Basically, Ashland could best be described as a more fuel efficient one of these:

Long Technical Section- No technical section, but realized I omitted speaking about our teacher, Jim Kish. Theres 7 students total, 2 "TA's" and Jim, all of whom are super helpful.

Its perhaps easiest to direct you to his website www.kishbike.com to get a sampling of his work. 

Jim builds about 40-80 bikes a year, and has been featured in the NAHBS (North American Handmade Bicycle Show) Jim dismisses his talent as just experience, but every day I'm amazed by his craft. He's basically the Gabe Burkett or Jenny Hong of Ti. His welding hand always produces this smooth bead that always maintains the same diameter, consistency and lacks any sort of contamination.

On top of all that, he's been able to fill more than one hole or two I've put in the frame so far.

Just a few shots of his work:

Just when you think you've just put together a great weld, you just have to look over to his work table to see the road Bike that he's been building step by step as our class demonstration.

His top tube/ seat tube weld:

My Top tube/seat tube weld (same side):

Thankfully, the other side looks alot better:

Hopefully I'll be able to get a couple of close-up shots to be used in my portfolio...

Day 5- Friday

Short Summary-

Today was just not my day. I burned myself twice, electrocuted myself, failed my bottom bracket failure test, and had a horrible day welding. Sometimes you take two steps back after taking one step forward, and today was definitely that day.

I wasnt allowed to start tacking my front triangle until I had finished a gruelon weld and done the bottom bracket failure test.  The gruelon joint was welding three identically shaped tube into an equilateral triangle. My welding skills were way off from the beginning, as I oscillated between welds that were too cold and other welds that burned straight through the mitered tubing.

Gruelon in jig-

After finishing the complete gruelon weld, I discovered that I forgot to drill purge holes through the 3 tubes, so there was massive contamination on the inside of every weld.

Again already frustrated with the day, and probably wishing to rush through things to get to actual framebuilding, I somewhat hurriedly rush welded through the BB failure test. 

BB failure test in jig:

Basically the BB failure test consisted of sticking a large lead pipe into the mitered seat tube and pushing down as hard as possible. Positive failure meant the tube failing right in front of the weld, while failure failure meant the tube failing at the weld.

Epic fail...

The good news was how much force was needed to actually break this thing, which uses inferior tubing to the stuff we are welding with. Even failing the test, it was somewhat of a confidence booster that the welding made these unconnected tubes very, very strong.

BB Test #2 (had to use the same BB shell, which u can see on the other side):

This time success!

Today I also found out I was not selected in the New York City Marathon lottery. I'm still not sure if this is good news or bad news. I might still run Philly or the Marine Corp Marathon depending on Katie's schedule.

Other good news is I placed my gear order in today. We're able to buy parts at a nicely reduced price. Id like to be able to build up this cross bike as soon as I can once I get home, so this will definitely help.

To finish the frame, I've also settled on Easton's EC90x fork. Weight is 450g (same as Edge, Alpha Q CX 20, and Ritchey), and has a nice aesthetic I've always liked. New for 2009 is an integrated threaded tube nut that threads into steerer tube.

Chris King seems to be the gold standard around here, so needing a headset, Black Chris King headset it is:

I've finally decided to make the leap to SRAM for this bike. Im still happy I went with 7900 for my road bike, but SRAM seems to offer more of what I'd like in cross components. SRAM's lowest offering still weighs less than Ultegra and offers most of Red's technology with zero loss shifting, internally routed cables and a crisp, responsive shifting mechanism. The price is also right, and the black finish is really nice.

I bought a component package with the Rival that not only includes the standard groupset, but basically every other part to make the bike work. It basically comes with a Ritchey Comp handlebars, seatpost, stem, Fulcrum 7 racing wheels, and a Selle Italia seat. I'll probably swap the Ritchey Comp stuff for the Ritchey pro components already on my existing Cross bike.

Im looking to finish the bike up with a Fizik Arione saddle, and plan on using my Neuvation Aero 4 wheels, which again offer performance at a bargain (plus I still have a year of no fault wheel insurance to use up).

I also used the opportunity to buy 2 torque wrenches to finish out my tool collection, so I could work on my super six without worrying about over torquing parts (as I have a tendency to do with just about everything).

Long Technical Section- Frame Materials

Lots of people have asked why build a Ti cross bike? I've ridden steel, aluminum and just recently upgraded to a carbon frame, all offering their own benefits and inherent problems.

Steel:

From the time of the p-far, steel bikes were the frame material of choice. Especially if weight is not a consideration, steel provides a beautiful ride quality. Steel is ideal for commuting bikes, touring bikes, or any other bike where durability is of chief concern.  There's a reason why steel bikes from the 60's are still around in large quantities. They weigh more than all of the other frame materials, but for the "steel is real" crowd, it's still the frame material of choice.

My 1986 or 1988? Schwinn Prelude is steel Tenax SLX tubing, and while it weighs alot, it offer a real comfortable ride quality, although I'm sure the relaxed geometry and 28 mm tires I have on there doesn't hurt either. 

Aluminum:

While many will argue the origin of Aluminum, I'll say that it was Alan (AL uminum AN odized), an Italian frame company that first started popularizing Aluminum as a frame material in 1972. In general, its alot lighter than steel, alot stiffer, and alot more economical. Most bikes in the $500- $1500 is made from aluminum.  Tubing is alot thinner than steel, and as a result, tube diameter increased. Aluminum gets alot of its strength from this tube diameter, so dropping an aluminum bike against a lightpost, or other fixed object will often result in a dented tube that severly compromises the strength ability of the frame material. However, plenty of people race on slightly dinged up framesets, and like any alloy frameset (and unlike carbon), it will not catastrophically fail. Companies like Cannondale popularized aluminum in producing a frameset that still weighs less than many carbon framesets. (Typical Optimo Cannondale CAAD 7, 8 or 9 framesets weigh approx 1300 grams).

My first road bike, a 2006 Cannondale CAAD 7 frameset, was made of aluminum. While Cannondale may have been known as Crack-and-fail back in the 80's while they were perfecting their craft, few can argue with their year's or research and field testing in creating one heck of an aluminum frameset. Its heavy enough to feel the bike underneath you, so it "feels" more stable through cornering, and is a terrific economic option for a racing frameset. I will say I'm not sure it was the best choice for a cross country expedition.

Carbon:

Alan also credits themselves for the first carbon fiber bike in 1976. Greg Lemond was one of the first to see carbon fiber's potential and was one of the first to ride carbon fiber in competition.

Well crafted carbon frames will be the lightest frames available, hands down. Their ability to be shaped into different shapes and beefed up in places needed the most such as the Bottom Bracket also allow it to be the stiffest. 

Carbon has the ability to eat up alot of road chatter better than most frame materials; however, if you hit a big bump, you'll actually feel it even more.  This is because while carbon has a very high tensile modulus of elasticity, its compressive modulus of elasticity is MUCH lower. I was never a huge believer that carbon could be that much better than aluminum, but having finally made the switch, I can say there is a huge difference. 

Unfortunately, carbon doesn't crack... it catastrophically fails. One mishap on a carbon frame and it's likely finished. Im still not sure how, but during the Yale race weekend we discovered cracks on my seatstays and seat tube after the circuit race, even though I never crashed on my carbon bike. 

Seeing how most bikes are made from aluminum and carbon these days, I wonder how many of those bikes we'll be seeing 30 or 40 years from now.

Ti:

Ti came out during the early 90's as an alternative that would split the difference between steel and aluminum in weight, ride quality and stiffness. While lighter than steel, Ti frames will never weigh less or be stiffer than carbon or aluminum, yet can cost more than both of them. However, they offer better road damping, do not lose their ride quality like aluminum over time, and are more durable than steel that can rust. Most people looking for a Ti bike are looking for a lifetime time that is a well crafted object and performs just as admirably.  Ti has never really gone mass market and has remained the domain of the individual frame builder or smaller bike companies.  Unlike other frame materials, Ti does not need to be painted, and already being a beautiful material, is often left in its bare state.

I'll admit that I think carbon has already cemented itself as the frame material of choice for road cycling. However, cross is different. While you would be right in saying carrying a bike at the end of a cross race can be downright exhausting, I've found body fatigue to be a larger factor for feeling tired than having a lighter bike. I value a slightly more comfortable ride than the stiffness that my aluminum cross bike provided. 

There's still something romantically traditional about cross racing that differs little from when the sport first began. While deep section tubulars are a new thing, most of the other equipment remains, down to the wide angle cantilever brakes. Cyclocross is still a niche sport within a largely niche sport in America. Most cross racers are passionate about cycling, own several bikes, and are more knowledgeable than the average cyclist. They want a bike that rides well and don't just believe everything they are spoon fed by the bicycle manufacturers. People want frames that show the highest level of detail, quality and hand built craftsmanship.

If you think this covers everything about frame material, Sheldon Brown would say not so fast:

definitely worth a read through:

http://www.sheldonbrown.com/frame-materials.html

Crappy carbon bikes don't ride as a nice aluminum frameset. There are different grades of material