jamesdak 

This one is NOS. No sign of anything being mounted that I can see. Paint still on BB threads, no insertion marks inside seat tube, headset shows nothing mounted, etc.

jamesdak 

Plenty of room with the bare dropouts!

jiangshi

I have a feeling that will be a 'quick handling' bike.

I would imagine if your left lung has more air than your right, it will pull left.

Looks like fun.

What are you going to build it with?

jdawginsc 

And the arrow cut at the seat tube slit between the stays.

P!N20

Beautiful frame @jamesdak

You may have seen this one which has a few similarities to yours which is pegged at '82: https://www.flickr.com/photos/401964...7637818644045/

Related bicycles.net.au thread here: https://www.bicycles.net.au/forums/v...30249&start=25

jamesdak 

Yep, stumbled on those researching the bike. There's been a few posts on these Krapf bikes on her too over the years.

unworthy1

he blue/white example does have the same date on a (different graphics) head tube decal but is this "Schweizer Meister 82" an actual date of manufacture for either of these bikes OR does it just commemorate a championship victory in a 1982 Swiss race?
Some other details to point out re: the blue example It has "Losa touches" but some differ such as the lugs appear to have only his "teardrop" piercings, not the "Y" shape. The stay caps are a different shape to the OP's, and there's the top-tube cable routing. Otherwise it has many similarities...but no Columbus SL decal?
(I can't see any pix for any Australian example)
EDIT: Ooops I took another look and there ARE "Y" shaped piercings in at least one of the headlugs, but a teardrop in the seat lug socket.

jdawginsc 

He was definitely a quirky builder. He definitely deviated from his own touches from time to time. Double hourglass on the BB, tears versus Vs, flat stay caps, versus scalloped.The one thing I have never seen different personally in pictures is not having the arrow cut at the bottom of the seatpost slot.

CampagManMike

Beautiful frame, very interesting indeed. Go for tubs

jamesdak 

The frameset is back from The Bike Shoppe. They did the needed facing work, installed the headset,and checked alignments. Now to get serious about the build plan. I like the silver wheels on it but these are nothing fancy with what appears to be lower end Shimano hubs and the rims have been a total pain to mount two different set's of tires. Hubs weren't too bad but I serviced them anyway. I've got two other 126mm wheelsets I could use but they are dark grey anodized rims and I'm not feeling that on this bike. It also seems stupid to go hunting for another 126mm wheelset when I have 3 spare sets on hand already. I am going to see if the beautiful silver tubular wheels on the Opus III will fit this with the tires on it. I doubt but those tires probably have less than 200 miles on them so there again, stupid to pull them off.

Little mocking up today to check fit and to see what size stem I need.


Don't mind the seatpost, just put in there quickly to get the saddle position so I could reference the proper stem size.

And a couple of shots to see how the different housing colors would look.


Red

White

Yellow

jdawginsc 

I like the yellow, but the red pops.

jamesdak 

These are the Superbe hubbed arc en ciel rimmed wheels with 700 x 25 Velox tubulars glued on.


This may be the ticket!!!

But unfortunately there is something tweaked, out of alignment in the rear. When I put a wheel in with the axle all the seated in the dropouts the front of the tire is almost against the non-drive side chainstay. If I push the one side of the axle forward in the dropout a bit to center the wheel between the chainstays it's then canted off center up top. So... beyond my crude skills to figure out or fix. May be time to see if there's a frame guy somewhere in the northern Utah area that can sort this out. I know the drive-side rear dropout is pinched a bit in the opening because I can't slide the axle in, I have to go in from the side if that makes sense. Don't know if that's what's causing all the issues or not.

jamesdak 

Figured I should post this picture here too. I got the Krapf Jersey in the mail finally and it compliments the bike perfectly.




I also think I'm going to make one concession on this build with the brake levers. Probably going to use these new Tektro's vs Superbe ones to give me a cleaner look. And....my hands are getting old like the rest of me so to be honest these will most likely be more comfortable. Although......I have been looking at a set of the Suntour SL's also.

jamesdak 

Got back onto this project today. Still trying to sort out the proper wheel/tire solution based on the tight rear end.

Mounted up some new Vittoria Corsa G 2.0 in 700 x 23 size today. Was a bit of challenge finding good 23c skinwall tires this time.

As expected mounting was a bear even after I warmed up the tires. These rims are a bit difficult to mount anything on and the flat, tight Corsa tires where a challange. Had to break out the VAR tire tool for these.

I also dealt with the rim tape issue on these wheels. They had those crappy rubber things on there. I didn't have the right width Velox tape but wanted to get these tires on. So for now I put down a layer of cloth first aid tape and then put the rubber liners back on. I'll order some Velox in so I can do this properly eventually.

If I have time and the right BB I may build this one up over the weekend.



Now there's a reasonable amount of room between the rear tire and the crimped seat tube.





Otherwise these tires clear quite well.

jamesdak 

Big thanks to Doug Fattic . He pointed out that the FD braze on installed on this bike was an early Shimano one made to work with the Dura Ace Ex FD's So I found a NOS on ebay and it just came in. Quick mock up shows that all should fit just fine now and clear the chain ring. I might actually get this built up this weekend now.




Of course that means I have to make a final decision on what color housing to use. I am leaning towards white today as that then allows the colors on the frame to pop more instead of taking away from them like the red or yellow would.

jamesdak 

Well, I'm supposed to be doing a good cleaning of the house today but keep getting drawn back to the bike. Went ahead and properly mounted the BB and crank and then switched over the Soma Hwy One bars I'm going to use on this. Temp mounted the saddle and seatpost. I want to find a highly polished silver one for this if I can though. Last weekend I took the ball hone to the seat tube as the 27.2 seatpost were barely going in and there was something sharp scratching things up.

Seat post clamp on this is not keyed. So I had to jerry rig a bolt setup to work on this.

One quick shot before I get back to cleaning.


Don't freak, seat post height not set. Still deciding which one to use.

P!N20

Hi jamesdak , sorry if I missed it, did you sort out the alignment issue?

shoota 

Dang I missed this thread until now. Cool frame! It screams 80s.

two things:
WHITE housing.

And, what makes the FD hanger specific to that DA fd?

jamesdak 

Seems so. That tubular setup is not a 126mm rear like I thought. So when I tightened down the QR it seemed to pull things off center. Weird because I've been using the same wheels on the 1985 Opus III with no issue at all. Had just borrowed them to mock up on the Krapf since the set of wheels I have on the Krapf now are heavy. Thinking of finding another high-end 126mm wheelset or maybe having one made.

jamesdak 

Thsi is what Doug Fattic said in another thread when I was discussing the problem. Seems he was right:

"Your front derailleur braze-on looks like it might be the earliest one Shimano made. It was designed for their Dura Ace EX front derailleur. What is different about this braze-one (then more modern ones) is that the back concave shape has uneven thickness. In other words the thickness at the top of the boss is thicker than at the bottom. This shape is going to rotate the derailleur a bit counterclockwise. Or to say it another way, the derailleur cage nearest the chain stay will be even closer to the chain ring unless using an old Dura Ace EX.

I've mentioned this in old posts but different models of front derailleurs have different pivot points and so their setting heights (for the same size chain ring) can be quite different. If I remember right, your boss has quite a bit of meat so the slot can be filed higher to raise the height of the derailleur."

tkamd73 

Beautiful frame, love that wheel cutout on the seat tube, don’t know how I missed this thread either, if me I’d go with the red or white cable housing, as the yellow housing doesn’t quite match the golden yellow accents on the frame. Waiting for the fully rigged pic.
Tim

RB1-luvr

such a gorgeous bike. I'm partial to silver cable housings. I wonder if they'd look good on this.

georges1

What about mavic helium tubular wheels ??? Other possibility is to have mavic open or mavic reflex used a high end hub laced to it.

jamesdak 

Finally got time to get back to this one. Pretty much finished for now. I've gotten about another foot of snow though over the past two days so I still don't know when I'm going to get out on any of these new rides.

This one came in at 21 lbs 9 ozs as in the snapshot here.



Wound up literally flipping a quarter to decide on the chain. Silver won, LOL!

Used red bar tape today but still wondering how white would look on it. Got a really nice looking Nitto seatpost on it now to give me the setback I needed along with the polished finish to match the stem and bars.

jdawginsc 

Where did you get the red crank caps?

Is it Dura Ace RD and shifters as well (can’t see the picture well).