First Blood

So I've been working in the garage some over the last few weeks. To be honest I haven't been all that productive, but I try.

As the title says I drew first blood on my ti frame today. Mitered the seat tube at the bottom bracket intersections. If things go well I will be mitering the rest of the tubes this week.


Seat tube in the mitering fixture.


Just out of the fixture...note to self. Check the speed on your mill.


All cleaned up. There's a tiny little gap.


And these are bullits that will be used for my seatstay tube caps. They looked like crap when I got them, but they clean up well.

Hot rod

Again I'm not very good at this.

So the better part of the weekend was spend milling down two plates to modify my current tube bender. Right now I think I can successfully bend .5" and maybe .75". I would like to try my hand at some .875" tubing, but it won't even fit in the bender with the current tube clamp. With that in mind the goal of the plates is to extend the clamp just enough to get a piece of .875" tubing in there. It may fail, but you never know and at $130 for a pair of s-bend stays it's worth a shot.

I still have to cut out another piece, tap it and weld all three together. Wish me luck.

Podcast

what can i say i love these stupid things. a friend of mine turned me on to them several years ago and i can't get enough. i'm not as hooked as i was before, but i still think they are the best thing since sliced bread. i got hooked on the cheesy one's at first...you know two guys shooting the shit about nothing at all. i just thought it was a good time to past the time while i was working. with me not being at work i don't spend quite as much time plugged in and haven't kept up to date with the one's i usually follow.

tonight i was in the mood for some musac and checked out the fader cast and ran into this little jem. i hope you enjoy.



i don't know much about the band other than the fact that they were putting music while i was shitting in my pants...

nothing new from the tabl.

So I just love new toys. This week two new toys decided to make my home their home. First is the new bike. I've been without a mountain bike for what seems like a month now. Which in the grand sceem of things isn't that long, but in prime riding season seems like six. This wasn't my first choice, but I didn't have it in me to wait another two months for the frame of my choice. By then it would have been October. Here's the new bike in it's semi finished state. I still need to finish building the wheels, add a chain and make final adjustments to the brakes and derailers.


I love the graphic design on the bike...


And now to the other toy which hopefully will make my life a little better at the welding table. I originally bought this setup because of the promise of better argon coverage while welding. Which it seems to do (keep in mind my shiat welding skills) but with the large outter diameter of the cup (that clear thing) I'm having problems getting into tight spots. I'm sure none of the big boys (those with more skill) would have the same problem. But I will be the first one to tell you that I need all the help I can get at the table. Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to put it to test.

So it's been raining here a lot lately, which is good and all, but it's killing my riding time. I guess if I wasn't such a pussy I'd go out anyway. The good thing with all of my time is that I can go out when the rain stops. That's not always an option when your working 9-5. Over the last few days I've been try'n to clean out the shop/garage. It was getting to the point that you couldn't even walk in there with out the possibility of braking your neck. There's alot of stuff in there, but the ultimate goal it to get the misses in the garage over the winter months.

before


Of course it had to rain in my parade. I double checked the forcast and there was one tiny little spec that managed to get us.

after


And the tables still a mess...that's today's project and hopefully some welding time as well.

I have come to the conclusion that I am one impatient mother fucker. I don't understand why people even have a business phone if they aren't going to answer them.

I've also decided that I want an instant junky fix to my frame situation and I'm going get something somewhat off the shelf. Stay tuned.

Oh I guess I should also say that I'm still a kempt man...fun times I tell ya, fun times.

I guess I'm living up to "I suck at this". Oh, well life's busy...there's so much that has happened since my last outting. To sume it up I'm now unemployeed man servant to the misses.

On the bike front my beloved UBI bike has decided it's time to retire as well. It's been a fun ride, but in my heart I was always wandering if and when it was going to break. It last day on the trail was July 11, 2009. It was a fine day for a ride and life was good.

Here's a pic...it's such a small thing




The good thing about this happening is that it forces me to move on and get my ass in gear. I've been pussy footing around with this stuff for far to long with little to no progress. So hopefully I will posting some new shots of my next build. It's gonna be a bastard of sorts, with a 29" front wheel and a 650b rear wheel. Things I would like to change with the new bike is to hopefully have a straight rear triangle, shorter stays since I'm running a small tire than 29" and higher bottom bracket. I'm just recently changed the rear tire to the 650b after I was good and tired of dealing with the tire hitting my seatstay. The switch helped and I really like how it (or did) ride.