gugie 

He's got a lot on his plate right now, although I'd agree that Andy would make a great copy editor, based on his past experience as the Sports Editor of the local Cumberland newspaper.

His story on how he got that job is worth listening to.

Andy_K 

My wife reclaimed the side of the garage I've been using for painting projects, so I'm going to have to do this one under the back deck. Today was a bit too windy, but I have little patience once I start making progress on a project. After putting primer on the frame I realized I was getting drips in a few spots because I was overcompensating for the wind. I'm hoping tomorrow will be more favorable.



The bare spots on the fork are small enough that I was able to get that done, which is nice because now I'll be able to see how it looks dry and figure out if I need to make any adjustments for the frame. Early results look good!

Dean51 

Great project Andy K! FWIW, I've had an '83 Konno Allez in my fleet for a few years now. I acquired it along with an '81 that I sold as it was too small for me. While both were in my possession, I observed the '81 had the shift cables routed under the BB while the '83 had the cables running over the top...as yours are. I reached out to Tim Neenan in the spring of 2017 and asked him why the change was made. He got right back to me. Tim said he had spec'd the bikes to have the cables run below the BB and that Yoshi must have made the change on his own for reasons unknown. In a follow up email, he sent me the picture below..... Tim, Yoshi Konno, and Yoshi's daughter.

Dean

Japan 001

Andy_K 

Wow! That picture is fantastic!

The 3Rensho-built (I hesitate to say Konno-built because I know he had apprentices) Specialized bikes are a bit of an enigma. I've been reading the scraps of information available in various discussion forums, and I saw somewhere that Specialized didn't sell these as an upscale version of the Allez or Sequoia. They were just part of a contract with 3Rensho (meaning the company). But that doesn't square with the well-established stories of Mike Sinyard, Tim Neenan, Jim Merz, and Mark DiNucci (at different times, I assume) spending months in Japan to make sure that every detail was exactly the way they wanted them. How is it possible that Yoshi Konno was given this degree of freedom in the design and yet these bikes weren't marketed as a special sku? Or were they?

merziac

Merz and DiNucci went there to get the mass production contractors on board with the quality level they wanted, then Sinyard beat them to death on the $$$ by capitalizing on their production capabilities at newfound quality levels.

Konno was never subjected to that being he already was at the quality level they wanted but his price was quickly displaced by the beatdown the others had succumbed to.

Rocket-Sauce 

A beer sommelier is called a cicerone.

gugie 

Oh no, I had this discussion with Andy_K . Becoming a cicerone requires spending a lot of time, money and structured study.

Andy's just a beer sommelier.

Spaghetti Legs 

Plus, if you tell Andy you want an IPA he’ll walk away and not come back.

Andy_K 

I have a simple and consistent policy on this. If your beer is being shipped across two or more oceans and extra hops are needed to keep it drinkable then IPA is acceptable. Otherwise, the beer shouldn't be intentionally ruined in this way.

RiddleOfSteel

There are a lot of rubbish IPAs out there. Mediocre ones, too. So I more than understand many people's distaste for them. Lately, I have found myself more interested in less aggressive beers (dark pilsners, etc) for numerous reasons, but I still like the IPA clan (and have a handful of favorites). Imperial IPAs, I have found, can correct an overexuberant hop profile with their increased malt presence, but can still be ruined. :/ At least we have 1,000 Hazy IPA options now!...........

bOsscO

At this time of year you should all be drinking German festbiers! Vienna lagers, marzens, etc.

Andy_K 

This is the real reason I've become so militant against IPAs. I agree there are a few good ones, but there are just soooooooo many. The tipping point for me came a few years ago when I stopped at a bar in Hood River that had six beers on tap...five IPAs and an APA.

Yes!!!

droppedandlost 

"Do you have anything not IPA?"
"uhh... Bud Lite in a can"

Andy_K 

I'm pretty excited about how the fork turned out.



The new paint is glossier than the old, but a few rides ought to take care of that. I think the color is a good match.

I was really planning to put the frame painting off until this weekend, but I peeked at the forecast and saw 15-25 mile per hour winds Saturday and Sunday, so I snuck out midday and gave it a hasty shot. I'm afraid I may have put it on too thick in a few spots, which will be especially bad if I did it near the masking around the bottom bracket. Hopefully I can smooth it out with sandpaper.



Pay no attention to the level of clutter in my garage. Speaking of which, you know what's a really awful feeling? When you've just painted a frame and you're turning it around to hang it up to dry and you feel the headtube bump your elbow. It doesn't look like it left a mark. I guess it had dried enough by then for me to get away with that, but it was a serious "oh crap!" moment.

Andy_K 

I've still got some things to clean up, not least of which is the significant amount of residue left by my frog tape, and there's a spot or two where I managed to not completely cover the primer, but overall I feel confident that I'll be able to smooth over the problems.









Look at the bottom bracket picture, in particular. That's got three tubes making abrupt transitions from the original paint to the new paint. You'll have no problem spotting the edges, but I'm pretty sure I can fix that with a bit of cleaning solvent, some fine grit sandpaper, and maybe some car wax. And even if I can't, it's in a spot that won't draw the eye. Plus, look at the same area in the wide shot of the frame!

noobinsf 

Looking good! Most of those areas will be obscured by hardware, anyway, right? Crank, chain, cables, seat bag... Plenty of smokescreen if the clean up is not to your liking, but it's a really good match so far.

Andy_K 

Exactly! I think I'll be able to get it to blend, but even the way it is right now (hanging on the workstand behind me as I type) if I turn quickly and look at it, absolutely nothing jumps out at me. The first thing that catches my eye as I look it over is the seat tube transition, and that happens almost exactly where the front derailleur clamp will be.

Now I just need to somehow find the patience to give the paint a week or two to dry before I start hanging parts on it.

droppedandlost 

Soften the transition lines and no one will notice. Good work on the color match.

bOsscO

it's looking fantastic so far

bwilli88 

I was hawing on that frame and knew it would probably end up going thru Atelier gugie if I ended up with it, but nice job.

xiaoman1 

Nice work!
Best, Ben

Andy_K 

On another thread, I got some tips for converting the rattle can to a form I could use for touch up paint. Long story short....



It was as thin as water in the jar, but started to dry very quickly as I brushed it on. The early results were good, but I ended up making some mistakes before I was done that will require fixing up.

A little feathering to hide the masking line on the seat tube and down tube.



This is about mid-blade on the fork where the original paints was intact. There's a spot in the center of this picture where I filled a chip the went down to the chrome. I wish I had a before picture.



Finally, remember the spot I mentioned wear I bumped it with my elbow right after painting? Well, I found that on the lower head tube lug. There was also some scraping around the lugs where I masked it off too close and didn't cover part of what had been sanded away. I'm not entirely sure what I did here. I think maybe I put down some paint, did some other things, and then tried to come back to it after it had started to thicken. Whatever it was, the brush decided to shed some bristles here and it just generally ended up looking pretty awful.



I don't know how this will turn out, but my first attempt to fix it was hitting it with some paint thinner to take off a lot of the paint I didn't need in this area. I'm not sure if the drops you see in the picture below will dry as paint or evaporate. This will definitely be a place I have to revisit with the touch-up paint. It's also likely to require some sanding.

Andy_K 

I've reached the point where everything I do to the paint is making it worse. So, I think I need to accept that I don't have the patience or skill to get this perfect. It looks pretty good, and I might come back to it from time to time, but for now I'm moving on to the build and ride phase of the project.

This weekend, I built the wheels.



Today I installed the headset. Usually I borrow a proper headset press from @gugie for nice bikes like this. I was feeling impatient today, so I used my DIY headset press. The problem with the DIY tool is that 90% of the time at least one of the cups wants to go in crooked. I added a few more bits to my tool today to try to fix that. The copper reduction fitting serves pretty well as a drift, but I needed something to keep it centered on the threaded rod. Using what I had on hand, I added an extra nut as a guide for the smaller section and a couple of washers with some pipe insulation for the wider section. The washers are a close fit to keep it centered, and the pipe insulation fills space so the washer don't get crooked. All of this still leaves about a millimeter of wiggle. It's not as good as a proper tool, but it worked much better than the DIY tool without these additions. As a MacGuyver modification to a DIY tool, I'm pretty happy with it. The second picture below shows the upper cup slightly angled, but this was before I started tightening the nuts. Once I got it started it straightened itself out reasonably well.





The headset, BTW, is a Specialized bit that I had on another bike and reclaimed for this project. It's different from the Speciailized headset listed on VeloBase in that it doesn't have O-ring seals. There are no grooves for them, so they aren't just missing. It says "Specialized" on the lock ring and inside the upper race.



Finally, the current state of the bike.



Next up, I need to buy a bottom bracket and start installing the drivetrain.

gugie 

Just in time for the rainy season!

Andy_K 

I know! That's going to suck. I guess I should have said I'm moving on to the build phase. The ride phase may not come until June.