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A Long Time Coming

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A Long Time Coming

Old 02-24-21, 08:34 PM
  #51  
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Originally Posted by duanedr
There are hone machines or those stone things they use for engine cylinder walls. There may be others that I'm not aware of - which is why I asked. I tried the stone hones but it chattered and there was very little pressure applied so the effect was minimal.
Yes my initial honing attempts with cylinder stone (usually three on spring loaded carriers/levers) hones were disappointing. The flex hones do a far quicker job at smoothening out the ID surfaces. But I feel the goal in a seat tube is different then that of an engine. I ream till the test post just slips in with no snags but not drops. the honing results in a slightly smoother insert and very little more slop. Andy
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Old 02-24-21, 09:10 PM
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Originally Posted by Doug Fattic
Andy, I've been enjoying watching the process of your MTB frame with some original ideas on the frame was well as how it is made. It is certainly nothing you could buy in a store. BTW, I encourage my frame building class students to put their frame together to ride it 1st before painting it for real just to make sure all the braze-on bits are in the right place and they haven't left one off they now wish they had. As you already stated, a clear coat over bare metal won't last long but I'm sure long enough to figure out if you need to make any changes. You might want to consider putting on just a primer instead. House of Kolor primers that come in red, blue, yellow as well as black and white are actually nice colors and might be another option for you. Because they are primary colors, they can be mixed to make almost any color.

Doug- Thanks, my thoughts about a temporary (somewhat) protective coating is as you say. To test out set up and such. But also be easily removeable for the long term finish. I don't have home painting ability other then rattle cans currently and it will be a few months before weather allows my reintroduction to "real" painting to start. My experience with removing paint suggests a no primer cheap spray can job will come off easier then the other coatings I know of.

But this does bring up the question of steel surface coatings, lifespans of protection and later removal for classic painting. Another thread perhaps? Andy
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Old 02-24-21, 09:18 PM
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Originally Posted by Andrew R Stewart
Doug- Thanks, my thoughts about a temporary (somewhat) protective coating is as you say. To test out set up and such. But also be easily removeable for the long term finish. I don't have home painting ability other then rattle cans currently and it will be a few months before weather allows my reintroduction to "real" painting to start. My experience with removing paint suggests a no primer cheap spray can job will come off easier then the other coatings I know of.

But this does bring up the question of steel surface coatings, lifespans of protection and later removal for classic painting. Another thread perhaps? Andy
I suppose my thought on using primer only as an intermittant protective coating is that I think it doesn't have be removed. When you are ready to paint again, it can be sanded smooth, wiped off with a cleaner, and then more put on either as more coats of primer or thinned down to be a sealer.
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Old 02-24-21, 09:27 PM
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Doug- I am allowing/assuming changes to braze one locations and/or further joint finishing after confirming set up. I don't expect the condition of a temporary coating to be still valued when it comes time to do a "real" paint job. Andy
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Old 02-27-21, 09:23 PM
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Last shots for a while. The completed frame/fork will see a visit to my sandblaster (in sister's garage who is recovering from C-19, she has a week to go in her quarantine), get a final touch up sanding, get blued then clear coated. The first photo is of how I plug the shell during blasting. When painting the cups get exchanged for a pair that have 6" of bar brazed on them as a handle to position about the frame when spraying. Andy

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Old 03-13-21, 06:45 PM
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The bike is done for now. I blued the frame and fork, applied decals, clear coated and assembled the components. Rode it up and down the street then over our lawn.



I used some bluing, Birchwood Casey's Perma Blue on the suggestion of another hobby builder. I have used Navel Jelly before but it barely darkens the steel. The Perma Blue is significantly darker but the non ferrous metals were affected. I applied the bluing initially with a brush and I think this is a mistake, The stuff dripped down the tubes and where it stayed for a while, and before I could spread it out it stained much darker then the brushed areas. I did a first coating then went back with a paper towel dampened with bluing and tried to even the tints out. In hind sight I suspect the dripping down of bluing and with it some of the steel's color changes is what darkened the brass. If that first coating had been done with a paper towel and the build up/drip down on the joints was wiped off right away the fillets might be brighter. Another aspect to the bluing is the different steels used (Columbus, True Temper, Reynolds along with various mild carbon steels) there is a slight difference to the color the bluing attained. The mono stay has a blue tint and others are more brown.



It all started with this fork. The unicrown style and thus a jig was born. Can you see the small concave relief just under the fork crown? It's to allow access to the race with a punch to remove it. I've suffered too many crown races that were real a pain to begin removing. I did follow the WTB tires' rotation directions but they seem backwards to me. My skills won't challenge their traction much though...



Good image of that blue tint I mentioned. The thread and it's frame images that I got the inspiration to use Perma Blue were much like the monostay here is.



This shot shows both the muddled look to the post bluing fillets (and the pocked surfaces that they have) and the heavy handed spraying of the clear coat. Lots of sagging/drips. Doug Fattic is correct when he postulated that frame painting has a higher skill set then building did.



This seat binder reinforcing collar is something i am somewhat proud of. You start with an idea of something different. Then that morphs as you work the rest of the area, then comes together you hope as some image raises to the top. More cloudy fillet.



The build up kit consists of various themes. No 1X here! 9spd to maintain compatibility with other bikes I have. DT 350 hubs, TRP brakes, Sugino crankset to get less Q, 170 arms and Shimano thread in bearings. Cheap post and take off bars and stem. One of the reasons to blue the frame is because it cost so little to try and will buy me time to ride the bike and make sure I like the build and braze ons before spending the big bucks for a nice wet coat job. My fit will be a work in progress (as well as y fitness) It's been a long time since I spent any real time off road.



It seems that on nearly every frame I do there's that "oh no" moment. With this bike it was the seat stay and rear caliper clearance. I initially mounted the caliper bracket the wrong way and found that the caliper's cable/pad arm contacted the stay, badly. The brain goes through a spin of options and should haves at the same time. perhaps it's maturity or maybe slowing down but in time one explores other possibilities including is the adaptor bracket facing the right way, it wasn't. Still once reversed the stay is still so close to the rearward caliper mounting bolt that hex wrench access is not happening, so a hex headed bolt that uses a box end wrench is used.

I have to say I had quite the travels with this frame/fork. Soon I will figure out if it's a keeper or one more slippery step to the more solid second attempt. Andy
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Old 03-13-21, 08:55 PM
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I guess you'll have to switch to hydraulic. Looks great, I keep thinking about using bluing.

I think on my mtb I'm going to bend the stays for more brake clearance.
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Old 03-14-21, 04:35 AM
  #58  
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I've been there and done that with the rear brake mounting. The fix for me was to go with a 180mm rear rotor and adapter, which moved the caliper forward enough to get the rear bolt in. I have a special allen key that I cut off, so that I can access that bolt. That wrench also come in handy for tightening the band clamps on SRAM road shifter hoods.
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Old 04-08-21, 02:57 PM
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I had hoped it would be a while before I added to this thread but sometimes fate says otherwise. Just got back from my second ride on this bike and now have some feedback on the construction, specifically the rear triangle. I took quite a fall off the edge of a climbing ridge, "chose" the wrong side to loose it on As you will see the rear end is now close to an inch off center. In the violence the SunTour crank soider folded ove with the large ring. That bit was from the tree that stopped me from the full 25' of vertical drop. The 6" diameter tree has a serious chip taken out of it about 4' off the slope's surface (which was about 45+ degrees). Once again I find that it takes bad luck to see what good luck I have. My helmet is slightly indented on the back, I have a few leaks of blood and my knee is being iced as I write this. I expect tomorrow I will discover other soft tissue issues. I was only a half mile in so the hobble out wasn't too bad.

Here's a few shots of the damage. rotors, rims, rear der, levers, seat are all fine. I thing it was my body that was the force that bent the frame against the tree, given the impact bruise on my upper thigh (a few inches to the right and I would have not gotten up anywhere as quickly as I did). I knew I would be revisiting the "paint job" but not so soon. My plan is to remove the seat stays and arched yoke and do a DeKerf like yoke attached to the current mono stay. Oh well, another learning experience (actually two including the fall off). Andy



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Old 04-08-21, 04:50 PM
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Yikes. Any ride that ends with saying "but you should have seen the tree" is not a good one. Hope you recover soon and get back in the shop and on the trail!
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Old 04-08-21, 06:48 PM
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Andy, you're too old for that sort of thing.

Hope none of the undiscovered injuries are too serious.
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Old 04-08-21, 07:04 PM
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Originally Posted by unterhausen
Andy, you're too old for that sort of thing.

Hope none of the undiscovered injuries are too serious.
I was too tentative and not focused enough till too late. As of 9pm my body feels better then it might have. The bike is in the basement and I've started to search for the right replacement crank, which might prove to be harder to find these days then doing the frame repair.

So as I said a few weeks ago I'll get back when there's more, likely months away given the season is exploding. Andy
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Old 04-08-21, 08:18 PM
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All my mountain bike crashes are because I'm too tentative.

The only reason the crash at 1:35 isn't me is that I wasn't there that day
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Old 04-08-21, 10:03 PM
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Originally Posted by Andrew R Stewart



Well, if yer gonna do sumthin', you might as well do it right.
You dun broke it good. (Hey, there's an emoji for that!)
In all seriousness though, I hope you are ok. What you did to your bike is impressive. That tree deserves every bit of agony & busted bark you saw fit to bestow upon it.

It especially sucks after all the work you put in, but at least now you have a good story to tell.
I'm lookong forward to the v2.0 repair thread.
Keep us posted!
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Old 04-09-21, 06:19 AM
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I didn't know frame building was so hazardous!
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Old 04-09-21, 10:05 AM
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Hope you heal up well. Getting hurt sucks at once you're 'of a certain age'. I twisted my ankle in mid November and it's still bugging me...

Also, please let us know about the damage to the frame. Whenever I see plates used in a rear end, I silently say 'hmmmm' to myself. I always wonder how they compare to tubes for stiffness/ride as well as durability and crash resistance. Not that we should be building bikes to withstand the apocalypse but people do crash so it should be factored in. Did it bend at the cut-outs in the chainstays and the plate in the seatstays or did the tubes bend not at those joints or did it bend at the BB shell? Any of that info would be interesting indeed.

Advil, ice and rest!!
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Old 04-09-21, 11:53 AM
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I'm also curious to know where it bent. I'm not sure seat stays will stop damage like this though. Had to scroll back to see if Andy used plate for clearance, but he didn't. I imagine it bent at the wheel clearance potato chips though.
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Old 04-09-21, 01:09 PM
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Originally Posted by unterhausen
I'm also curious to know where it bent. I'm not sure seat stays will stop damage like this though. Had to scroll back to see if Andy used plate for clearance, but he didn't. I imagine it bent at the wheel clearance potato chips though.
All I've done is to pull the cranks off at this point (had to show it to coworkers as a mater of pride. One of our wrenches is quite the down hiller and he was impressed) It looks like your suggestion are where the bends happened. I can easily see the flat strip yoke bent and the chainstays around the scallops also look like their hinge point. Makes sense with the least lateral cross section. Andy
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Old 04-09-21, 03:19 PM
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Originally Posted by Andrew R Stewart
All I've done is to pull the cranks off at this point (had to show it to coworkers as a mater of pride. One of our wrenches is quite the down hiller and he was impressed) It looks like your suggestion are where the bends happened. I can easily see the flat strip yoke bent and the chainstays around the scallops also look like their hinge point. Makes sense with the least lateral cross section. Andy
That's where I would expect the chainstays to bend as well. Did the upper plate bend or the seatstays or the mono? The upper plate looks pretty stout so i'd expect it's in the thinner seatstays.
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Old 04-09-21, 09:11 PM
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Duanedr- No, the seat stays are straight. I used a Park F.A.G. (auto censor...) and my speculation of 1" of off center rear end is darn close to reality. 2" of gaged difference. The mono stay is not perfect but that's because of my build prep, not the incident. The yoke plate is now a French curve.

I will think about this repair for a while for a few reasons. 1- The seat stays are not exactly tapered and thus same diameters along their lengths. I think I might have mentioned this. I let this pass as it's just a MtB. Now I have the option to redo them. 2- I have not done a DeKerf treatment yet so that's interesting. 3- the LBS season is exploding and my time to do my work is limited. 4- Even if I were to spend the time over a weekend to not come up from the basement I still can't find a crankset that I agree with. 5- The woman who is not to be wronged wants me road riding able. (in fact tonight she asked for another frame/bike for me to build). Andy
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Old 04-10-21, 05:49 PM
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Originally Posted by Andrew R Stewart
Duanedr- No, the seat stays are straight. I used a Park F.A.G. (auto censor...) and my speculation of 1" of off center rear end is darn close to reality. 2" of gaged difference. The mono stay is not perfect but that's because of my build prep, not the incident. The yoke plate is now a French curve.
Andy
Interesting. Well, bummer but it's good to be busy and it's good to have our SO's engaged and giving us projects so overall sounds like a good summer is headed your way!
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Old 04-11-21, 12:32 PM
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The autopsy is finished and the patient died of blunt force trauma. Yes this frame is toast. It's actually rather interesting in how the various bends and dents are.

First and most obvious is the main frame and the rear end are both bent in the same direction, banana like. This is odd to me and I've tried to imagine the way that happened as I only know of the ground (a 45ish* slope I was tumbling/sliding down), the tree (that stopped the fall, about 25' down the slope from the trail) and me (which remained relatively centered on the bike during the fall). I ended still straddling the bike with it's crankset against the tree's base, a notch taken out of the tree about 3' up from it's base. It's possible that on one of the tumbles when the bike contacted the ground both ends were on raised points of the slope so my weight was the force that made this banana like bend along the bike's length. Then with the last tumble the bike's crank hit the tree 3' up it. Or when I fell that last 3' onto the tree's base the ends of the bike were higher then where I was. Either way the bike got a significant side loading.

Next was the crank's being so bent up. This is an easy one what with the tree's scar and some wood still stuck in the rings. The spider arm tab got folded over and that ring bolt head cracked. This is the only component damage that I found other then the slightly loosened headset.

I have mentioned the rear seatstay yoke and the chainstay bends. I've confirmed both. The chainstays could be realigned to have symmetrical dog legging at the scallops, given the rest of the damage I don't know if I'll recycle these stays.

Not initially seen was the killing blow. The down tube has a nasty ripple just above the BB fillet and on the RH side of the frame. This is a compression failure and I attribute the very localized nature of it to having done a few heat cycles for too long as I "worked" the fillet. This is perhaps my biggest take a way. I need to get better at laying down a fillet the first time and not feel the need to revisit it to make it look better.

An interesting dent in on the DT's underside about even where the crankset's damage was. There's a lengthwise dent from the cable casing getting pushed on. If this were a chain stay I would say it was an attractive clearance crimp if a bit shallow for one.




I set the centering gage squarely on the ST bottom. The DT ripple is evident too.


At the ST top end. This amount of offness isn't too bad and maybe about twice what it was pre crash.


Same gage height at the HT end. That's a lot of change as this was also maybe 1mm off before.


And also a big movement at the drop outs. When I place a straight edge along the chain stays' sides the dog leg bends are no where symmetrical anymore.


Great view of the DT ripple above the BB shell.


Out of focus view of the DT underside casing dent.

What was too hard to photograph is the DT just below the HT. There seems to be some slight bending of the DT there, again more along the sides then top or borrom. No real ripple but what looks to be a change in the finish running around part of the DT's circumference. The color/surface change looks similar to the above BB ripple and a straight edge suggests some surface "bowing" in the lasy 1/2" of the DT.

Given all I now see I won't be trying to repair this frame and even question the recycling of the chainstays and drop outs. I suspect if I were to cut out all the tubes and roll them on my surface plate I would see some bowing or other stress results that are currently not easily seen. I'll order new drop outs (Paragon has then back in stock as of last night) and try to find a suitable set of chain stays with a dog leg bend. I have one more shell in 73mm x 1 9/16" diameter (heavy wall compared to the usual 1 1/2" diameter). Seatstays should be on hand but I haven't checked my stash of main frame tubes. The fork is fine and still measures as straight so it will be reused. I see I need to up my fillet game to reduce the yield strength loss of the tubes adjacent to the fillets

When this all begins again I'll start a new thread, it will be a while though. Thanks all for the looking at and contributing to what's been a real learning experience and eye opener for me. Andy
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Old 04-11-21, 07:30 PM
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Originally Posted by Andrew R Stewart
The autopsy is finished and the patient died of blunt force trauma. Thanks all for the looking at and contributing to what's been a real learning experience and eye opener for me. Andy
Wow, thanks for sharing. Reinforces how lucky you are to have ended up with as little damage as you did! Heal up.
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Old 04-12-21, 07:55 AM
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I'm glad you didn't damage your leg. Do you ride platform pedals?

Look at it this way, a carbon bike would have been in pieces, so inconvenient to get it back to the start.
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Old 04-12-21, 08:22 PM
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I have yet to find a pedal and shoe that works for me off road, so sneakers and Deore pedals w/ clips and straps. I have thought about their aspect on this fall off. Not to be contrary but I've shaved skin off my knee and hips before with clips and straps and released prematurely with Speedplay X2s. So I'm not sure I could predict crash/feet retention possibilities with any combo anyways.

When i had stopped I stayed still just sensing my body till I was comfy (bad non pun) with my state before I tried to get up. I have done this pause before but sometimes that pause was really short (fear of on coming traffic with previous bike crashes and/or fire in auto crashes).

I have to say (again?) that I have suffered with very good Karma in my bad moments in my past. I seem to fall well. Or fall with less damage then I might have thought in hindsight. Maybe my early Judo and gymnastics kick in when I need it. Andy
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