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In Late October I spent a week at Lake Eyre in South Australia. It is the largest lake in Australia and the lowest point in Australia at 15 meters below sea level, when it is dry. Its a salt lake and the location of the record breaking land speed record by Donald Campbell in the early 1960’s. Its one desolate place and while I am glad to have had the experience of seeing it I was kinda glad to be back and looking at the tools again.
I finally tied up the details of a touring frame for Jeremy in WA. We have been discussing this for at least 12 months and have at long last got things sorted.

Jeremy’s touring frame

You will see more of this in the coming months.
Bundit dropped another project off before I left for Lake Eyre so I got that finished. You might think the dropouts look a little strange sloping down from the chain stay. This is partly because it is a frame modification rather than being built with these dropouts but it does mean they run parallel to the ground and that the gearing remains constant along the length of the D/O slot

Dropouts removed

Slotted and lined up

Single speed conversion

Caitlan’s beautiful chrome Rob Bailey was suffering from a case of seat post slippage. No matter how much she tightened the binder bolt it never really felt tight and the post slipped down under load. Looking at the seatpost lug it was clear that the hole in the ears was a bit too big for the bolt and this resulted in the ears deforming inward. ,while the bolt moved further out toward the back of the lug. The traditional way to fix this problem is to braze a piece into the ears, filling up the larger holes and then drill it out to match the bolt. To do this to the Rob Bailey would have meant destroying the chrome. A costly and more complicated job than was needed. I decided to machine up some stainless steel bushes that could be bonded into the lug. I made them with the appropriate diameter holes for the binder bolt and left a small lip on both of them so the epoxy would be tempted to give way when they were tightened. The flats are clearance on the back of the seat tube. If your interested, I used Devcon plastic steel to bond them together. Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures after I assembled them into the frame, but the seatpost was finally tight when it left the shop

Rob Bailey seat lug

Binder bolt and bushes for Rob Bailey

Rob Bailey seat lug fix

What a great day     http://amysgranfondo.org.au/

gduke at Amy’s Gran Fondo

gduke @ Amy’s Gran Fondo

Gareth from Essendon Cyclery https://www.essendoncyclery.com.au/ brought round this Salsa that he was building up for a client. It was to have Di2 and a hub dynamo and he wanted to run the cables internally. I drilled holes in the appropriate spots and brazed stainless washers over them for reinforcement. I sent it off to Bell Powder Coating in Preston to be coated in Gloss Black.

Apart from the Di2 this build will have quite a few hi-end parts including a set of Praxis cranks and a top cap switch for the dyno hub. Looking forward to seeing the final set up

Di2 for a Salsa Marrakesh

Rear stay for Di2 on a Salsa

Seattube port for Di2 on a Salsa

Salsa top tube port for Di2

Salsa fork for a Dyno hub

Black and glossy Salsa Marrakesh

Made myself a new derailleur hanger alignment tool

New hanger alignment tool for gduke frames

I am somewhat of an analogue person. I like manually operated stuff. I drive a manual car, like manually wound watches and have yet to convert to electronic shift on any of my bikes. Cables do pretty well. However I decided that it was time to bring my Deckel FP1 milling machine into the 21st century. One of the challenges in working with a relatively small machine was that I didn’t want the accessories to overwhelm the machine itself. So I decided to use the same bracket that the light mounts to for the swing arm, just to reduce the number of things bolted to the machine. I think it works, but only time will tell.

Fagor DRO and slides

DRO swing arm

Nothing like hamertone paint for machinery

Or swarf on the Leinen

Delrin bushes and aluminum caps

DRO fitted up on the FP1

Sharing the bracket

Just when I thought we had canvased all the possibilities for a future frame Bundit turned up with another frankenbike idea. He has in his head the idea that he would like a funny bike. To this end we have crafted two frames together in order to let him decide if it is remotely comfortable. Given the bracing that Bundit thinks looks pretty cool, this frame is pretty weighty. Little does he know that those gussets on Cinelli laser’s were mostly bog and did little to aid structural integrity. They were all about aerodynamics. Anyway, I am comfortable with this construction. I hope he finally gets around to the real thing one day.

Funny frame for Bundit

Its a fake Rossin, but he likes it

Bundit is an artist, https://www.facebook.com/bunditpuangthong/ and works in framing shop ( picture framing) to support his art. At Christmas time I was given a vintage Polish poster which Bundit framed for me. It has come up very well

Poster framing by Bundit

This frame came in after a visit to a Chrome Plater. For reasons of anonymity both the name of the frame and the plater will remain private.
The frame had gone in for the rear end to be chrome plated. It had come out with the seat stays partially rusted away. Something had gone wrong in the process. I can only presume that the reason the chain stays weren’t in the same condition is that they were able to drain more effectively. Anyway my job was to replace the rusting seat stays and return it to the way it looked before. It was a Reynolds 531 frame from the 70’s with Campagnolo dropouts. It would be a shame to let it die. I cut the old stays out and decided to save the original bridge.

Seat stays removed

Instead of the solid top eyes that you can buy now that plug into the top of the stays, this frame had traditional Italian style concave tips. These are made by filing down the stay to the length you like. In this case the original ones were about 50mm long. Using the off-cut from the stay, you braze it to the angle you have filed and proceed to cut that down to the edges of the tube.

Making stay tips

When you are finished it looks like this.

Italian style concave tips

You then braze them back into the frame and fix the bridge back in place.

Replacing stays

Original Brake Bridge

I am not sure what he owner of this frame will do now. He has to make
up his mind whether to risk another visit to  a chrome plater or just paint. This isn’t the first repair I have done after a plating mishap and I cant at the moment. actually recommend anyone in Melbourne. I am open to advice here though and even if it just for the sake of vintage restorations, would like to find someone reliable.However,this frame is structurally sound again.

Being a framebuilder who doesn’t mind doing repairs has its benefits. One of them is that you get to see people who own bikes they really like, happy again. Often they come to me in some distress. Their beloved bike has been damaged in some way and they want to get it put right.
Russell is a case in point. He really liked the mid 80’s/90’s Duell frame he had put together, but he had managed to damage it by attempting to attach a child’s seat to the seat tube. Columbus tubing doesn’t really like the idea of a cantilevered load clamped around it midway along its length. Russell wanted it fixed but didn’t really want to lose much paint in the process. Luckily it wasn’t a huge crimp and I decided that it certainly wasn’t compromised structurally. I decided I could make up a slide hammer with a piece on the end the same diameter as the seat post. I pushed it down into the seat tube with a good serving of grease and used the hammer action to get it out again. Do this a couple of times and, Wallah, nearly good as new. You can still feel the fact that it is out of round but it is hard to see.
Russell was rapt and I was really happy to see him that way

Russell’s Duell

Slide Hammer for a seat tube

Slide Hammer in action

February has been a little quiet. Not too quiet actually but it did give me time to do a few other jobs around the house. However ,Bundit came by with his latest project. He assures me that this is all leading to a complete frame with all the ideas we have toyed around with refined. I believe that this frame ( the one in the pictures) will be a very harsh ride. Front forks are much stiffer than rear stays, due to their bigger cross section and the fact that they are essentially self supporting. Rear stays can afford to be thinner because they are only part of a triangle. A true wish bone rear end is no where near as big as a pair of front forks. I will wait to hear from him as to the ride quality.

Bundit’s latest

Despite my claim that I was done with the Raleigh, there was still some adjustments to be made. Clearances to be added ( strange way of putting it I must admit ) and clamps to be refined. This is not only a unique frame but it has unique parts that have to fit. Nothing is ever straightforward  https://gdukehandmadebicycles.com.au/2016/02/29/rebuilding-the-raleigh/

Raleigh fit up

Reduced height on the chainring bolts

Raleigh chainring clearance