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.

 

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.