Most recent activity
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Looking good, not afraid to leap right in!
What size tip are you using on the torch on the above photos? The central cone of the flame seems to be larger than what I'm using (with a N°3).
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Had some more time this afternoon so finished off the front rack and brazed in a threaded boss to the crown. Turned out well, very stable and secure, if a little agricultural looking.
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Awesome! Look forward to seeing the pics. Made a front rack today and only managed to set fire to my shirt once.
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Cheers, right at the bottom of the learning curve at the moment so every new joint I do I learn something new/improve slightly which is encouraging.
Added a pair of low-rider mounts to the fork of the Roadrat, as well as a cable guide for the brake hose, after work this evening. Happier with the brazing, a lot tidier, even pre-filing. Held back with the flame once everything was up to temperature and it definitely helped, moved more quickly too, to hopefully reduce how much heat was put into the tubes.
Spray.bike paint does not like heat at all though compared to the paint on the frame! Frame and forks will be off to be powder coated once I've added the braze-ons I want to the frame.
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Great build! Little space with the red board looks ripe for a framebag.
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Drybag on the bars will still be okay, just need to be aware how high the crown/top of tyre will come up at max compression and make sure you have clearance for that.
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Made a start on savaging the front rack from the Roadrat to improve it. Chopped off everything apart from the outermost tube and the rear brace. Going to add two tubes running fore/aft and then fixed legs off the front of those to an axle mount, then a horizontal tube from the leg to a mid-fork low rider mount. Should be a lot more stable with no adjustable elements and beefier tubing. Only one tube done so far, should be a good opportunity to practice more brazing. Again too much heat with the torch I think, brass is spreading too far.
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Rods arrived on Monday but due to the outside work space (currently with no working light) any sort of fiddling had to wait until today.
Picked up some 10mm mild steel tubing from B&Q to start practicing with before making a front rack. Reasonably happy with a couple of simple 90° mitred practice joints. Undoubtedly overheated and didn't get very good consistency with the size of the fillet, but overall I'm happy with it considering it's my very first attempt and there's not a huge amount of space to play with with 10mm tubing. Also happy with the Boric acid as flux, seems to work well, can't remember who recommended it in another thread??
Hopefully some more practice tomorrow, maybe with frame size tubes too, if the weather stays clear.
@Tallboy Cheers both! Each joint I do seems to improve in quality, I finished off with the two horizontal stays and they're really quite smooth.
@Rasmussloth yep, pretty level. Tacked the struts in after some rough measuring of length, then tweaked the angle until the rack sat level (using a cheap digital protractor) before fully brazing them.