I've been feeling a little under the weather, so things have been slow goings. I did manager to get Hoffmeyer's frame brazed up. (well mostly) Still missing the seat stays and the such. And I'm starting to clean up the fillets. I do think I am getting better at laying down a good fillet. (always more to go for perfection though) And there's still learning from every miter, and every braze. I will say the top tube holder worked like a champ, and once I have it dialed in, I think the new brazing sequence will be quite nice.
Hopefully, I'll be feeling up to getting some good work done this week. It shouldn't be too much longer, but all those final details keep catching me off guard with the time required. But I guess things haven't been going that slowly. This friday will be one month after the tubes showed up at the doorstep. Man I love having two days a week off!
2 comments:
What's all that white stuff on the tubes?
That's the flux. It keeps the steel from oxidizing during the brazing process, and is also pretty acidic to keep the tubes clean. The cleaner the tubes, the better the filler will bond to the steel.
It goes on as a gooey paste. Then as the tubes are heated, the water boils off, and leaves the solid flux on the tubes. Once it hits operating temperature, it melts into a clear goo. You can see it if you look where the braze actually is. (Then farther away from the heat, it's still the white pasty stuff that is what's left after the water boils off.) But at the point of these pictures, the clear goo has already cooled down, and has solidified into something almost like cured epoxy. But it's water soluble, so a good soak in hot water breaks it up.
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