Last week, I got Brownie back from paint, and it came out quite well. A few bubbles in the paint, but hey, I'm not complaining. That day, I was going to cut and face the crown, frame save her, and take some pictures. Well after cutting the crown, the race just plopped on. Instead of having to be pounded and pressed, I could just slide it on with my fingers. It's a brand new Park Tool cutter, I triple checked the specs to make sure I used the correct sized 1" standard, and something came out wrong. Right now my theory is that I had previously pounded this race onto the fork that I built and cut at UBI, and possibly their cutter was old and worn. So it left the race a tick on the big side, wallowing out the race I pounded on, and now it won't fit anything else. I've been too frustrated to check, but I hope this is the case. It's definitely the easiest to solve with a new race.
In the mean time, I've started on my mountain bike frame. After just about completing the blueprint for her, I sleepily spilled my coffee all over the drawing, ruining everything. I started over, got it finished (again), and started inspecting my tubes. Then I come to find out my top tube is actually a down tube (making it too long, where I would have to cut off pretty much all of the butted section). And my down tube is some sort of oversized beast (~35.2mm, instead of the 31.8 that it was supposed to be) But I figure this out after I hastily started cutting the down tube. After talking to the folks at Nova, they were nice enough to take back the top tubes, and send me the correct ones (even though the order was a couple months ago). But - and rightfully so - I'm stuck with these beastly down tubes. It's ok, I guess I'll have an extra stiff frame. I guess this was supposed to be my race bike anyhow.
So lesson for the week, check everything twice as soon as possible, and be ready to handle when things still don't go right. Oh well. Next week we're going to a bed & breakfast, so I probably won't get a whole lot of building done. I plan to get back to it afterwards, as I'm behind schedule. In the mean time, here's some teaser shots of Brownie:
5 comments:
the fendette looks even better painted
Chris, that thing looks great, and dangerous! If you had to fight a rouge street gang that ruled the night all you would have to do is loosen your stem, pop off your top-cap and drop out your wheel. Then you could show that street gang who's boss, samurai style. Of course, by the time you did all that you'd probably be dead anyway. Forget I said anything.
Sweet Fork!
Thanks guys!
Hmmm... I'm going to have to practice dropping my fork for situations like that. Or maybe I could just do a wheelie, drop my front wheel, and start plowing through their formation. Ooooo those rouge street gangs, darn them and their run of '80s action cop movies.
Oh, and I am aware that I said "rouge" and not "rogue". I thought it captured those make-up wearing, bandana tied around the thigh, 2x4 with a spike-sticking-out-the-end wielding types better.
my grand slam was supposed to come with sausage.
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