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When Riley the mechanic at my LBS wanted a disk tab fitted to his new ride to work creation he came to me.We know little about the frame to start with but it has “Maggie” engraved on one rear dropout and “Valentine” on the other,.hence the name. Riley provided me with the wheel and caliper he was going to use.  Yes, fitting a tab to a frame with rear facing d/o’s does mean that you have problems with disk, caliper engagement . The easiest solution is to run a half link chain so that the wheel isnt pulled too far back. Riley is a mechanic . He will sort that out. The first step for me was to reset the rear end so that the wheel slid in easily. 5mm of spring could lead to the tab being attached at an angle and that would mean the caliper might not align with the disk. In any case its always better not to stress your frame every day..

The next step was to fit up the tab and see how much I had to reshape it.

Having done that Riley also wanted to run his hydraulic hose inside the top tube and down the outside of the rear stay. I slotted the top tube on the milling machine and started to think about lighting the torch.

While the entry points for the hose and the guides down the stays can be silver soldered on I figured the disk tab needed to be brass brazed given the fact that building a nice strong fillet around it would not be possible otherwise.

Once that was done it was just a matter of cleaning things up and giving it to Riley who amongnst other things is planning on riding it Around the Bay in September.

Leo bought this frame on “the Bay” and believed it was a 650. He is a small guy and wanted a track bike to fit him. It was small. It had a 85mm head tube and the seat post had been swaged at the back to allow the use of shorter chainstays and so the wheel could slide further forward It didnt come with forks and the seller professed ignorance as to where they had ended up. Leo missed a set of 650 forks at a later auction and came to me to build him a set. Given that we were building a set from scratch there were numerous choices I could offer him and Leo decided that he wanted a sloping crown ,alla cinelli and a fully chromed fork with a threaded steerer.

Cinelli style sloping crown with blades,steerer and d/o's

My first step was to measure the angles and lengths of the frame and run some figures to decide on the dimensions of the forks. He was keen to retain the quick handling despite the fact that this bike would end up as a street fixie.When I did the numbers it was evident that something was wrong. I figured it was my calculations and decided to do a full size drawing of the frame and work backward to the fork.

At this point I began to have my suspicions, soon confirmed, that this was actually a 700 frame. I called Leo up and we met to decide what to do. I mocked up the bike with a set of forks and wheels and he stood over it. Luckily it would still be OK and we went ahead with the build.

Dropouts brazed in

Turning the crown to match the bearing race

Slotting the steerer for the headset washer

Everything brazed together

Cleaned up and off to the chromer

Back from plating and fitted in the frame

Moral of the story. Be carefull what you buy on eBay and talk to someone who can sort things through with you

Romain’s Farleigh developed a crack in one of the dropouts. Given that the frame is at least 25 years old then that is not surprising,and even though Romain has it set up as a fixie,he wanted to keep it reasonably original and stick with the road dropouts.After looking at our available options for dropouts we decided that a set of Campagnolo ones would be the best. The picture below shows the d/o removed from the frame at the top with the campag one at the bottom. The other option being shorter than the original leaving little room for chain adjustment on a fixie

Farleigh BB cutout

dropout options

While I could have just replaced the broken d/o the fact that we decided to install something slightly different led to the decision to replace both.Anyway,once all of that was agreed to it was a matter of carefully removing both d/o’s from the frame,prepping the stays, installing the new ones and aligning them

offside d/o removed and frame prepped

new dropout before cleanup

Both d/o's replaced and cleaned up

All of this led Romain to have the frame repainted and after a trip to the painters and a set of new decals from Greg at Cyclomondo he was happy and back on the road

Painted,decalled and assembled

Hi everyone
The website is finally up and running. Thanks to Paul for setting it up and to my wife Lisa and James at Padre coffee http://www.padrecoffee.com.au/ for the feedback on the original content
This is where I will be chronicling new builds and work done for people,so you can get an idea of what I am up to. While this is a website to showcase my bicycle frambuilding I would like to consider myself a Maker of things ( I design and make stuff for a living as well as a hobby ) I am often inspired by other makers. Not all of them framebuilders. So ocasionly I may highlight someone whose work might be inspiring me at the moment. Dont see this as a distraction from bicycles but as an insight into my work as a framebuilder and the work of other makers of handmade/handcrafted products.
Given that Christmas is upon us and its the holliday season I will be away for the next month. You can leave a message on the website or phone me and I will get back to you
Have a very happy Christmas
Geoff

g.duke Handmade Bicycles launches today, offering handmade bicycle frames to enthusiast riders. Geoff Duke makes bicycle frames by hand and is now available to accept orders.