repechage

varied. basically how I would describe it is- powdercoat envelops the frame, a plastic seal. Paint does a better job bonding to it.
Self etching primer has an acid that helps "bite" into the steel, no powdercoat can do that.
Any 90 degree edge is at risk, more so for powdercoat as during the melt phase, the powder as it becomes a viscous liquid will draw away from a sharp edge.
Paint does this too, but from the moment of application is solidifying. Not becoming lower viscosity first. Easier to monitor film thickness.
epoxy primer sealer also does this to a degree, why I like a self etching primer first.
If you have worked with epoxy to laminate any composite fabric, the mix gets warm and "runny" just before it kicks, getting warm and curing, higher temps help, (don't shoot in the cold, clean the spray equipment promptly)
(Note: polyester resin does not, just gets warm as it sets, as long as you are above 72 degrees, below and it won't cure)

Make sense?

Even multi-layer powdercoat will have reduced film thickness at a "sharp" edge, multi-layers will help hide the micro holes in the coating, but protect the frame well, and bye bye lug detail.
One cannot avoid physics.

RiddleOfSteel

More progress (as I sit here and work CAD for various bike endeavors...) in the physical realm here today. Good friend @Dfrost lent me his matching front wheel (Mavic Open 4 CD rims) to complete the wheelset for the Medici's test ride purposes. I grabbed the two spare 23C-ish innertubes I had and installed the 25mm Vittoria Corsa tires, and finally the Medici is on her wheels!

Would you just look at that tight tire-to-frame gap? It's good to be home...


Among my spares is a single Prologo Scratch Pro saddle, so it gets employed. A very recently acquired fluted seatpost for another project (upcoming) gets used here and now the saddle sits exactly where it needs to (height and setback). Dang, we're finally getting some rake in this thing! I took some more measurements of the upper head tube / head lug and upper headset assembly to input into CAD. Millimeters count in the proportion game, especially when it comes to getting the brake levers at a nice height without torching the looks. Still mulling the Innicycle headset, but perhaps employing a stem that works a 26.0mm diameter bar instead of the more modern 31.8mm diameter. Why? Stem body diameter. A smaller bar clamp allows for a more slender stem body diameter, which in turn 1) matches the slender steel tubing of the frame, and 2) reduces visual mass up front. You'll see in the mockups below this photo.


31.8mm bar clamp diameter handlebars with the reworked HT/upper head lug + upper headset assembly. Saddle-to-hood-notch drop of 2" still, and the slight lessening of the "spacers" below the stem makes a difference.


Here we have a 26.0mm bar clamp diameter handlebars with the more slender stem. Looks better--we're heading in the right direction (and it looks better in the computer program, spinning it around). If I'm honest, it's a touch bulky at the "steerer." This is where having a vintage Cannondale would be great. Or just slamming the stem. Since I'm 0-for-2 in this scenario, I'll keep mulling it over while looking to see if a quill stem exists to solve the issue.


Direct (orthographic) side view. I forgot to mention that I redid the CAD fork rake to match the real fork, but it looks off. I'll have to re-measure the real bike now that I have wheels on it (even if I was very careful initially). I should also state that the addition of components in this model will help anchor the bike form and not have it look so top heavy and awkward, even if the cockpit has been the primary focus here. A completely assembled bike is a balance.

repechage

I think you pulled off the fork data correctly, on the real bike, when you drop the fork, I would double check the first 10 to 15 cm of the blades to tell if they are in column with the steerer.
May be pushed back a wee bit. What I see in the semi assembled bike and your corrected CAD bike look pretty equal.

RiddleOfSteel

I angled the tops of the digital blades back a touch to get them where they are here, but it's not enough it seems. Like you alluded to, many forks have one of their "lines" line up with the steerer/HT--it seems the rear is the usual one (hence "bent fork" quandaries). This is no different, though it is subtle. I'll adjust it soon. Thank you for the vote of confidence.

RiddleOfSteel

A bit of a digital update while I source components. I finally just plain built some wheels (32 spoke) in the MA40 fashion. Made some fun 10-speed hubs as well. That was last night. This morning/now was the construction of the 10-speed cassette. Lots of detail work, but it needs to be done well to look believable! The "anchoring visual mass" ended up being the hubs and spokes themselves, largely. Who would have thought? I built a 53T chainring and altered the crank arms just a hair, and added those as well (the cranks were already built for a track bike design). Crankset and BB "installed" along with the complete wheels and cassette, and we have a digital bike coming along!

As before, the Innicycle headset direction:


And back to the traditional quill stem (that accommodates a 74° HTA without angling down aka it doesn't exist) look. I will need to add a FD braze-on, which will then set the stage for making both derailleurs and the shifters. That'll take some effort, and time. It'll be a (humorous) race to see what gets done first: the digital model or the actual bike.


Ok ok, one late addition here. Traditional drop bars put the saddle-to-hood-notch drop at 2.5", so I thought, what would an Innicycle headset setup look like with that drop? The answer is "pretty hot." It's literally the same drop I'd get from employing a quill stem adapter, just, you know, a ton cleaner. Oh man...more choices, just like @Andy K !

repechage

i think the physical fork is a touch pushed back.
the way they raked the forks at Medici was the same basic way Masi did- so if they were anything the leading edge of the blades could get in column with the steerer.
you could do some trail calculations- mid 40’s would be typical- trail is funny sometimes less rake provides greater trail.
medici typical front end geometry was more stable than a typical Masi GC. Counterintuitive.
and check the actual bike for a level top tube.

Classtime 

I must say, "With such a long head tube, the modern and thick threadless stem works if you can trim down the clamping apparatus."

Mr. 66

Have you checked the fork for alignment? Given the amount of struggle it took to remove the stem. I wouldn't be surprised if some shift has happened.

tyler_fred

RoS,
Being a somewhat tall fellow also, I have always disliked the downward stem angle on tall bikes.

You could look for a Sim Works Gettin’ Hungry 75 degree Tomato stem. They came in silver and black up to 120mm reach.

I have often considered taking a 140mm Tioga T-Bone stem and cutting it apart with a 1-1/16” or 1-1/8” hole saw and then re-cut the 7/8” concave saddle at a 74 degree angle using a milling machine and then re-Tig it back together, albeit at a shorter 125mm reach. Sounds plausible on paper...

RiddleOfSteel

The quill stem I will employ will look like a traditional quill stem and not the TIG welded MTB-inspired ones. Especially on a lugged steel frame, Medici notwithstanding. Some fun/cool splatter paint TIG'd frame, fork and TIG'd stem would be a sweet look, but it's only cohesive in that arrangement. The top line or top edge of a quill stem, for me, sets the angle. Something like a Cinelli 1A is flat across the top and then bumps up to accommodate the clamping of the handlebar. There are Cinelli stems (XA) and other stems (Modolo and 3TTT to name a few) that run a flat line from the wedge bolt at the steering axle, to the top of the material that clamps the handlebar. It's a degree or couple, but it is literally the difference between a stem the looks angled down, and one that appears level with the top tube. And again, an angled down stem is not a problem if I'm using traditional bend drop bars, where the ramps angle down more steeply. Since I'm going for a non-extreme saddle-to-hood drop, a compact profile bar and its associated proper angle-of-set, determine what stem or stem setup is more attractive to use.

I'm looking at one of the variants of the 3TTT 84 stem (the cleanest looking form variant) to use as it possesses the top angle I need. I don't quite want to revisit a Modolo X-Tenos just yet, but have had good experience with them (the non-recalled version).

RiddleOfSteel

Alignment is perfect. Literally nothing looks out of place or "modified" (like, by a curb). I know Medici spec'd 48mm for fork rake up through 1984, so perhaps some things changed, or someone special-ordered it that way. My former '74 Paramount's fork looks bent back in comparison to the Medici's, but I know it was repaired and set straight. I love the lack of rake, especially as I've been angling to get back to a bike with a long trail front end (60mm+), which this does. So I do not see anything at all wrong with it, in all my bike experience. It's either measurement (not too likely) or a model (more likely) error, that's all.

repechage

Mr. Howard was on FB. I don't participate there, but if you do or someone you know does, might be able to ask his memory of what he designed. I think the bike is asking for 5-8mm of additional for rake.

qcpmsame 

RoS,
Interesting CAD work you have done, very realistic renderings that you are generating to work with. Those 3M paint stripper attachments are really good stuff, beats the hand cramps from using rough-fine grades of emory cloth sheets. One vote for a traditional quill stem, if you can find what you want to use. Loves me some Cinelli or 3ttt alloy sculptures. The cleaned off frame seems to be in good nick, and your mock up mule looks pretty good. Man, you tall folks have some stretched out frame tubes (:^{D)

Purely from my career as an engineer, what CAD program are you using for your drawings? Things have come a long way from 1979/1980, back when I took computer mapping using Harvard's, "Symap" cartography mainframe program. Toting around multiple boxes of IBM Holorith cards, getting in line to feed the cards through a reader, waiting for your printout to get turned around and placed in the out trays, then having an alpha/numeric character or "dot" representation of the area you were assigned to map. One misplaced comma, letter, mis-spelling, or math error for latitude convergence corrections, and you got back a blank print out, or gibberish, with a snarky note from a sysop to stop wasting their mainframe time. Ahh, this is why we call them the good old days. And, why I preferred hand drafting/engineering graphics and lettering (still have all my drafting tools too!)

Bill

RiddleOfSteel

Bill,

Thank you! I am working in a program called Rhino (or Rhinoceros), and in this case, Rhino 5. Rhino 6 is out, maybe even 7 now, but 5 is what I bought a 6 or so years ago and it works well. I learned CAD initially on Autodesk Alias, which is now a buzzillion dollars to rent/lease per month (basically extortion to anyone outside of an automaker of extremely large company, IMO). Alias is primarily surface modeling, and if you were to say, design a Jaguar, you'd use Alias for the surfacing/exterior and Solidworks for the motor and chassis. And then you'd make it out of sub-par materials with a number of compromises and then it'd be unreliable. But it'd look great.

I've been taking screen shots of the model so far. I should really throw it into KeyShot, a rendering program (and I have an old version of it...it's MUCH better now) and give you all a better idea of things. Dull grey backgrounds really don't help!

RiddleOfSteel

Ok, so I finally put the CAD model into a rendering program (KeyShot 4 is my fully bought and paid for version, but we're up to version 9 or so now. It renders and looks a lot better!). And while it is not the newest and best version, it still gives us a good look at things. Natural lighting, light reflection, and edge illumination (especially of anything polished silver) is off in V4, and it's pretty much always been that way. The spokes are particularly weird, but I think I tamed it well enough to be too big of a distraction. Backgrounds are Photoshopped in as there was a background in the rendering program but one can omit it upon rendering output.

Dark anodized grey rims, silver seatpost, black Innicycle headset. Definitely didn't coordinate the headset and seatpost here, but you get an idea of how 'comfortable' with itself it looks with the newer setup (and resulting handlebar/brake lever height, which is close to saddle-top height). [Keep in mind this is still a Battaglin SLX CAD model arranged into Pro-Strada geo]


Coordinated seatpost and stem now. White saddle and "bar tape" (turned the handle bar and brake lever clamp white).


A little front three-quarter view here. Lookin' good, IMO. Really needs a head badge and decals!


Rear three-quarter view.


"Catalog View" is what I will coin this perspective.


Last photo. Silver rims. Still looks good, but I want to import the traditional stem and various bar setups so as to be able to see the seatpost and stem in silver.

Kobe 

That Keyshot 4 program makes it look amazingly real. Takes a lot of the guess work out of "what would this look like instead".

Did you decide to go with the quill adapter?

tyler_fred

FWIW, Italmanubri (ITM) offered forged quill stems in 73, 74, and 76 degree angles.

qcpmsame 

Our small, family General Contractors firm had the old Autocad 2000, now their price for new station licenses would darned near bankrupt us. I'm retiring here shortly, so its going to be up to the next generation to make that decision, and he is our primary CAD draftsman as his skills are more current. Actually, I'm the only one with a current OS computer, that would work for the newer software and apps, the company's president doesn't deal with change and updates very well at all.

I'll look into Rhino and Keyshot, I need something for my laptop, at home now, looking at starting up a consulting business, for site adminitration and meeting USACE/NAVFAC CQM requirements.

Looking forward to your updates, and the build experiences!

Bill

RiddleOfSteel

Great to know! I will dig around for more info on those.

RiddleOfSteel

It's pretty astounding how many CAD programs are out there (and how many file types you can save to). Rhino is now at Version 7 and KeyShot at version 10. A number of industries will have their own specific CAD programs, so that may be the case for you. Rhino does do Class A surfacing, though it's extremely difficult to make beautiful complex forms like one would in Alias (and I have tried)--it's just in the surfacing 'logic' that they greatly differ. It fought me making fancy lugs on my custom CAD bike (and other projects). It's been a pretty versatile program otherwise. Keyshot has gotten a lot better since V4 (7-8 years ago!) and even as it's not $10 for a new version, the increase in capability and rendering quality/reality are immense.

I'm still hunting for handlebars--that is the last piece of the puzzle. I had ordered some but was told, days later no less, that it wasn't in stock. I didn't remember seeing an "it's out of stock" warning on the site, but maybe I missed it. Now if the other businesses that I ordered from last weekend would hurry the heck up and ship things, that would be great. Three orders of things 4-5 days ago and all I have is a confirmation of the order (which is unusual in general).

tyler_fred

Here's a screenshot of ITM packaging

RiddleOfSteel

Apologies for not replying sooner! I replied to others and meant for yours as well. Dang it.

KS4 really does help things, and the newer versions just keep getting better. Much more realistic, crossing the 'uncanny valley' and all. Putting things into CAD at the very least, with the eventual goal of inputting it into KeyShot for even more realism, was and is to help me sort things out "for free." It could have other benefits as well.

No decisions on stem type, but given the HT angle and lack of available stems (especially ones that give me the bar height I'm looking for), a quill conversion or Innicycle type is basically the way it has to go right now unless I just go with a traditional drop bar. I'll need to make some renderings of that as well. I have a compact profile 26.0mm clamp bar in the mail, so the "bridge" between brake lever and frame is slowly being completed. At least for a test ride (the bar will be used though). I am thinking I'll have to pick up a used adapter and stem to get the bike test ridden and assessed. More work to do!

1 Lugnut

Hmm...don't know anything about computer (CAD) design programs, but here's a shot of my Mondia that looks to be in the vein of your design . . . ?

60 cm / 531 Spl Lightweight tubing / ITM bar & stem / Edco Comp Hdset / Cyclone Derails / Dura Ace 53/39 / Amer Classic hubs / FIR Rims / Regina X-tra 12x26 freewheel / 19.5 lbs

bironi

I like that red option.
I rode a 70's Medici for several years.
Great riding bike.
Enjoy!

repechage

Thanks for the CAD commentary.

I am interestingly stuck in the dark ages.
I have a CAD package at work that has an upgrade path, big big dollars now.

I admit I am spoiled by how easy it is to use and how well acquainted I am with it, I can probably draw faster on screen than I can even layout a paper drawing. Way way back that was my test. Solid modeling is the leader, save for surface development- my history goes way back, GM was the leader at one time in mapping out highlight control.
something they have lost if you look at the New Corvette... all the car companies save Ferrari are out of control surface wise, but I digress.
( if one wants to see a disaster on a new car surface, look at the Mazda CX30... the flanks between the wheel wells ... who bought off on that!)