In other news, here's what I was up to with Eddie's frame: Chainstays were mitered, gussets were shaped, and braze-ons were brazed on with the help of some fancy new clamps from Sputnik Tools. (handmade in the U.S.) Let me say how excited I am to be using these! No more fiddling around with bending spokes to hold the braze-ons where I want them, eyeing things up to make sure they're straight and alligned, and heating with one hand and twisting with some pliers with my other hand if they didn't end up straight. Clamp on the tube, slap the braze on under the arm, and it holds it securely, centered, and alligned. I've easily saved 5-10 minutes per brazeon.
After that, drilled all the vent holes quickly and precisely with a fancy new drill press, thanks to my buddy Jason. Then I spent a day sanding, scrubbing, cleaning, welding, soaking, and a little smoothing. Now the main frame is all together, and alignment looking fine. I was worried about the clearance, threading the chainstays between the bigger 2.3" 650b tires and the chainrings. But it came out very nicely. I'm also trying something new with chainstay gussets, instead of a chain stay bridge. My brown bike has no bridge, but I figured the lugged BB was plenty of re-inforcement. With the lugless frame, I wanted to do something to keep that junction strong. And just for kicks, I made a bridge anyhow, and weighed it compaired to the gussets. (not that I'm worried about it, but the gussets ended up saving a few grams) But probably more relevant, they're going to be tough, and cool looking.
