Mix tape fever!

http://younglovesphilly.blogspot.com/ <–this place is pretty rad. guitars, clothes, records etc.. went out on friday with tom cause i heard someone was putting together mix tapes and selling them there. what a great idea, and although they're a little pricey, the tapes a great and you can listen to as many as you want, for as long as you want, before you buy. I picked up "Gospel Soul 58' to 74' " that i'm sending south to a friend and found a country mix that i'll be back to get before long. if you're ever out at 50th and baltimore and it's not a monday, grab a growler at dock street and pop in, its well worth it.

 

canti brazing

the brazing went well, better than i expected. My little jig worked great (minus the wood idea, retarded i know) and i really didn’t have that much clean up to do. I choose 56% silver for the job and TJ cautioned that since i’d be working with the fork blades and stays that i watch my temperature, which was a little hard considering the size of the torch tip but overall it worked quite well.

fluxed and ready

TJ firing up the torch

the wood idea did work but was quickly abandoned


ready for some clean up

awesome.

 

been awhile…

well i slacked off there a bit but i’m back at it and trying to stay on top of things. Although the only reason i’m doing this now is because i’m in bed (and have been since i got home from work) sick as a dog, actually the dogs don’t even want to be around me so maybe its worse than i thought. Anyway i thought, why i’m here and not moving i might as well try to get a few entries in here. The bike is pretty much finished and the brazing went well, wish i could say the same for the paint…Note to self and any other diy’er out there, every time you say “i don’t want to turn this into a huge project, i’ll just do it myself” really think about what that means. i don’t really need to go into the details but now that i know bonehead performance will do a single powder coat for $125 including blasting, i don’t think i’ll be doing to much painting in the future. Not to say that the reason it failed was beyond my control and can’t be done, but sometimes you just need to know when to cut and run. lesson learned, but not for the last time i’m sure.

 

Snow Day!

I can’t remember the last time we had this much snow! It’s awesome and the dogs love it. Especially logan who looks very regal, almost like aslan, the lion from chronicles of narnia.

awww….

dillinger was hard to get a shot of, he can’t hold still to save his life, but we did manage to trick him into thinking we were driving away without him and he perked up right away. Then i nailed him in the face with a fat snowball, but trust me, he loved it.

Thats’s a solid foot!

 

Canti brazing

As winter gets closer i’ve realized that i don’t have a bike that can 1: take fenders 2: fit anything larger than a 23c and 3: can hold a rack in front and rear. So i’ve decided to take an old schwinn prelude i had lying around and braze on a couple of canti bosses, throw on some misc parts and get it ready for the shitty weather to come.

First thing is getting the distances correct. the boss should sit between 280 and 285 mm above the middle of the wheels axle. so i measured from the middle of the axle up and made my mark at 283mm.

then taking sheldon browns advice, i measured from a fixed point on the fork down to my mark. This allows me to find that point again faster when the marker is worn away during the mitering/prep process.

with a little bit of filing i’ve got the boss sitting pretty good but as usual i skipped a step. I forgot to measure the distance between the two bosses and to my dismay shimano was specing 75-85mm and i was about 20mm off. So…back to the vice for some serious filing.

so after about an hour of file check fit, file check fit, file check fit i finally have the right side looking good and started on the left.

getting closer…

looking pretty good!

After i made all the cuts i could with the files i had i turned to some 80 grit emery cloth to fine tune the shape. Holding it tight against the blade i ran the boss over it allowing the emery cloth to take out some of the small high spots. I also at some points held the boss still and pulled the emery cloth through, which I think i prefer since the taper of the fork blade changes and this way i could be sure i was sanding it in the right spot.

After i was happy with both sides i put together a little jig to hold them in place during the brazing process and lined them up. Not to shabby!

an uncut boss up against a finished one just to illustrate the amount of material removed. next step the rear and then off to the torch to braze.

 

Alright!

Well heres the first post, nothing to exciting but it gets the job done. If you’re at all interested in what i’ve got going on or just need to get a hold of me heres the place to be. You see, lately its been noted that i’ve got a bad habit of starting projects but never finishing them, so hopefully this blog will not only chart said projects progress, but push them into completion as well. I’ll also be throwing up stuff that i find to be interesting and some day to day stuff too.