# None woodworking project - any objections?



## Ironballs (13 Jan 2009)

I have a little project, finished last year, that may be of interest though it is strictly non working. Will post if mods don't mind and there's a bit of interest - no point in taking up space if there isn't!

Completely new area for me, bicycle building, one of the best weeks of my life. You'd also get to see Old Ironballs.....


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## Green (13 Jan 2009)

No objection here. Did you make the frame?


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## Ironballs (13 Jan 2009)

I did, under some very expert guidance, all the brazing and shaping had to be done by me though


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## Mr Ed (13 Jan 2009)

I'd certainly be interested.

Cheers, Ed


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## PowerTool (13 Jan 2009)

I'll throw my "yes" vote in as well  

Andrew


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## Waka (13 Jan 2009)

Go for it, should be very interesting.


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## NickWelford (13 Jan 2009)

I'd be interested - if nothing else, stick it in general chat......

I'm sure some of the skills must be transferable to toolmaking etc......


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## Paul Chapman (13 Jan 2009)

I'd be interested as well.

Cheers :wink: 

Paul


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## woodbloke (13 Jan 2009)

...and me - Rob


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## superunknown (13 Jan 2009)

No objection, just posting in my appreciation for Greens avatar. Cliff the legend! (RIP)


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## Steve Maskery (13 Jan 2009)

Get on with it! 
S


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## joiner_sim (13 Jan 2009)

I thought you wanted to post the project!? Come On! :lol:


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## Steve Maskery (13 Jan 2009)

nola":1yqxr38a said:


> just posting in my appreciation for Greens avatar. Cliff the legend!



Yes, he went downhill a bit after "Living Doll", didn't he?

Now then, where is this 'ere bike?
S


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## jasonB (13 Jan 2009)

As some one who works with metal as a hobby I'll be interested.

My Uncle was a frame builder, I've still got the mountain bike frame I designed and he build, all nicely fillet brazed. A few non standard parts on it like oval section Columbus forks as chain stays, without a bridge, internal cables, most of the rest was Reynolds.

Jason


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## Karl (13 Jan 2009)

Come on Fella, get it posted !

Cheers

Karl


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## Ironballs (13 Jan 2009)

Alright, alright, it's on its way!

There's a few pics so I need to martial them from photobucket plus add a bit of commentary - oh and speak to my girlfriend who's currently abroad. Could be a late night.....


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## Green (13 Jan 2009)

Nola wrote:



> Cliff the legend! (RIP)



I got Cliff 'em all on DVD for christmas and only got round to watching it yesterday. Been annoying the neighbours ever since :twisted:


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## John. B (13 Jan 2009)

Yup!! :roll: All what they all said, I agree (hammer) (hammer) (hammer) (hammer) (hammer) (hammer) (hammer) (hammer) (hammer) and more

John. B


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## hamburglar (13 Jan 2009)

Also looking forward to it. Love bikes, used to build my own wheels. That was real fun. Would enjoy seeing your post.


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## Ironballs (13 Jan 2009)

Okay then, little bit of background. Been mountain biking for years and only bought a complete bike a couple of times, I normally prefer to have my own built using the parts I want and know will work. Then a couple of years ago I read an article in the excellent Singletrack magazine which described the ventures of a couple of chaps who went on a frame building course run by the highly respected frame builder Dave Yates. To cut a long story short I read the article about a billion times and eventually booked onto the course, which I did in May last year.

You build a steel framed bike brazed together with brass then built up with brass fillets. I built a mountain bike designed so that it could be run with an 8spd hub gear or even single speed if I lose my mind. Tubing is Reynolds 853, this is high performance strong thin walled and butted tubing that hardens after the application of heat. We used an oxy-acetylene torch which had the ability to burn through the steel in about 10 seconds if you weren't paying attention.

My last experience of metal working had been at school where I made some very unimpressive items - though I still have the trowel! Bit nervous then, but very excited.....

After getting sized up by Dave using his patented Mk 1 eyeball we pulled a selection of tubes from his large range and arrived at step 1, a box full of metal tubes, some dropouts for the wheels and a mild steel cast bottom bracket shell. Step 2 was make a brew, Dave was very keen we learnt this step. The first step was simple, put a plain half moon mitre into the seat tube, introduce to the bottom bracket shell you've just hand sanded clean of surface rust, put a bit of flux in there and then spark up the torch. Get told off by Dave for having too little oxy and too much acetylene and covering the workshop in carbon bits. Sweaty palms time, as I heat my first bit of bike to a cherry red colour. Bit of a mess this one but you start to see in action what Dave has been explaining to you. The steel surface has to be wetted by the heat so that brass flows and sticks, very weird when you see it.












After having a go on scrap it was time to mitre the down tube to fit the head tube. No mucking about here you need a big slice of man pie, pick up a hack saw, cut a semi circle, check the rough fit, then select the biggest file (half moon) and start removing metal. The trick is to take bold sweeps and keep checking progress. Very satisfying when it comes together, doesn't take long to pick up either






Dave had said at the beginning there will be no H&S lecture, assume everything is hot and don't point your lit torch at anyone (only 2 on the course a time). He also said you will cut yourself, you will get burnt, no one has made it through unscathed. I'll be the first I thought, until I met this little feller and lost concentration at the end of the day. Filing those very sharp points I slipped and embedded one in the thumb. Not good, blood rusts bare steel, must protect frame. This is a chainstay end, slotted and shaped to take a dropout and fill with brass.






More brazing, this time the dropout I had filed, with brazing more brass is good as it fills the joint. Tricky one to do as the points heat up very quickly and will melt if you keep the heat on them. Quickly learn to direct the heat and flick over the areas you want, brass will follow the heat so you play follow my leader with the torch. Looks messy, will clean up






My chosen seat tube fitted the bottom bracket shell perfectly but was a bit narrow for the top tube, so we had to fit a sleeve over it where the top tube would join. The option was to just braze on a sleeve or make it slightly more ornate. I had 5 mins to decide so went for ornate. No reason I chose this shape except that I thought it would be simple to do and look quite nice. Paper template, draw with a pen on the tube, hacksaw, file, power tools are for girls











This is the sleeve brazed on, again tricky as you need to get as much brass under the sleeve as possible without heating the tubes and distorting them. Also tricky as a lot of points on the sleeve. Put a steel heat sink down the tube to protect it and proceeded with caution. This really showed how brass followed the heat as you could feed in the rod and draw it in and watch it disappear, quite a lot of rod went into this one






Onto to Dave's jig now and cutting and alignment of the tubes, have to no what orientation each end is as you're usually putting a horizontal mitre at one end and a vertical at the other. Trick is to get one end right and then do the other, you should be able to drop it into place and it will hold itself in there. Small gaps are allowable as they'll be filled by brass, indeed if the fit was perfect and looked "airtight" it may be too tight and not allow enough brass through to the back of the joint











In go the seat and down tubes, getting more confident with the torch now and getting an eye for the flame, still hot work though






Trial fit of the chainstays into the bottom bracket, simple joint this one, just need a rough mitre in the end so that the BB is clear. As the BB is a big lump of steel it takes more heating so that's where the flame goes and you move it around there to draw the brass in, very little heat goes on the tubes











This shows the brazing of the headtube with the heatsink in place, too much heat here will distort the headtube - mine needed next to no reaming when finished...






To fit the seat stays I had to have the drop outs fitted to ensure that I had the right axle clearance, the drop outs themselves are steel, but I had aluminium sliders to mount the disc brake and hold the wheel. Aluminium melts at temps a lot lower than steel of course, the solution, some old tea towels soaked in cold water to keep the temps down - and don't point the torch anywhere near them
















This is the seat stays at the other end, a big mess of tubes and brass, a lot of heat ends up going into this section - sleeve, top tube, seat stays and seat clamp. Cutting the slot in the tube into 853 that has had a lot of heat into it is very hard work, that bit wasn't fun






This here is fillet brazing in action, not me and not my frame as I can't braze and photograph at the same time. Say hello to Nigel everyone
















A big moment this, bike off the jig and back from the blast cabinet, first bike shaped object. You can see the areas that have had the heat as they appear shiny after blasting - the beads don't touch those areas as too hard











This is me fillet brazing, aka the art of making brass forms puddles against gravity. Fillet brazing adds some more strength to the joint and is also cosmetically appeialling as it smooths the joints in your frame. Did a practice T joint and then off we went. Dave demonstrated the strength of the joint by taking my T piece and clamping in the vice , inserting a 3 foot long piece of steel bar and then pulling as hard as he can. Eventually the edges of the tube bent over a bit but the join itself was intact with no hint of a crack or stress lines. Officially impressed.

You do the fillets in quarters around each join, you start by tacking on a blob to start from and then building up from there, brass goes from solid rod to running onto the floor in 20-30 degrees. First few goes are quite patchy and need touching up, but you soon get the idea and get into a groove and start painting a smooth surface onto the brass with the flame. The better the finish with the torch the less work you have to do with the hand file. Hot and hard work, you have to smooth off the brass whilst still hot to make it easier and lose the edge of the brass in the steel without taking any tube off. Sunniest day of the course on that day...


























Fitting the seatstay bridge, dab hand at mitring now, quick job, highly satisfying. Dave no longer stood over my shoulder, or even in my end of the workshop
















View down the seat tube showing the seat clamp






New technique, silver soldering on the hose and cable guides. These go onto the side of the tubes, so you want even less heat here, therefore the silver which has a lower melting point. Much trickier than brass as silver melts very quickly and runs everywhere. Technique for this was flame in, couple of seconds later silver in, silver away, flame away. Bit like a pouncing movement!











There was a lot of work with strips of emery cloth to file the brass down before off to the blast cabinet. Frame finished and wheel thrown in for fun.






I spent a lot of time mulling over paint schemes and stickers. Got a load of car paint in the colours I liked and sprayed up a few pieces of wood. Took painted wood and frame to Bob Jacksons in Leeds, complimented me on the finish of the frame and were quite pleasant about my plank spray job too. Went for this 4 colour coppery/red fade, looks fantastic.

Spent another edge choosing and buy the font I wanted (know a lot about fonts now) and spent even longer talking through the double flail design with the decal man - Nick, very helpful. The name comes from a sad obsession with Red Dwarf and Arnold "Old Ironballs" Rimmer and is also tribute to the frame's iron/steel origins in a world of aluminium, titanium and carbon fibre. Double balled flail was just a little bit of fun, it is my bike after all! Finishing kit mostly in black to set off the frame colour as much as possible.

I may be biased but I think it rides fantastically, climbs like a mountain goat and descends like a demon. I love it and I made it, very proud. Hope you enjoy the build and hope I remembered to resize the pictures


























Old ironballs


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## Jake (13 Jan 2009)

Very similar to my DOGS-wotsits, down to the Rohloff.

Where did you get the rear dropouts to fit the Rohloff from? I ended up getting mine from some yank touring bike maker.


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## Ironballs (13 Jan 2009)

This bike actually has an 8spd Shimano Alfine, though I do have another bike with a Rohloff fitted. Rohloffs are quite easy to get hold of now (though still expensive), I had the other bike built up at a place called Moonglu and they sourced it for me.

The Alfine is nowhere the quality of the Rohloff, but then it is a lot cheaper, that said I've given it some hammer in the yorkshire grit and it hasn't missed a beat. In fact I prefer the trigger shifter it has over the twist on the Rohloff.


Funny you should mention the Roberts DOGS BOLX, Dave had his original DONKISNOB in the back of the workshop. Chas Roberts is a master of the fillet braze, he used to offer a clear lacquered frame as an option just to show them off


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## Mattty (14 Jan 2009)

Great project mate. thanks for sharing. 8)


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## Jake (14 Jan 2009)

Ah, thought it looked a little different, but I'm way out of touch these days.

Lovely bike anyhow, the brazes look very slick.


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## Fecn (14 Jan 2009)

Superb project - Totally excellent.


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## Philly (14 Jan 2009)

Fantastic - looks like you learned a lot!
Can I ask - why brass braze instead of welding?
Cheers
Philly


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## HeathRobinson (14 Jan 2009)

I have the exact same question as Philly.

Nice to see a couple of non-woodworking projects recently. Welding up a bike frame is actually something I have been wondering about. One has to be CAA certified but there is some welding to be done on aircraft which got me wondering what welding I could do. There is a local welding course that serves as an intro to 4 different kinds of welding. I'd really just like to try it out, only ever having seen welding from a distance.


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## newt (14 Jan 2009)

Philly from my experience which is limited in this area welding would be to hot and would destroy the characteristics of the metal, making a brittle joint.


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## jasonB (14 Jan 2009)

It is possible to TIG weld the joints but you have to be very good to avoid damage to the tubes, My Uncle had a nice line in repairing alloy & titanium frame sas he was able to weld these.

Also as was mentioned the fillet spreads the stresses out over a larger area of tube than a weld would.

Jason


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## Paul Chapman (14 Jan 2009)

Great stuff =D> Must be very satisfying riding a bike you've made yourself.

Cheers :wink: 

Paul


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## TrimTheKing (14 Jan 2009)

Excellent looking bike IB, looks and sounds like you had real fun making it too.

Cheers

Mark


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## Ironballs (14 Jan 2009)

Thanks all, I had a great time doing it so it's a pleasure to share, in fact I'm off out in about 10 minutes to go for a ride on it tonight.

The comments about welding v brazing are true, you can tig weld these tubes but you have to be very good at it as the tubes are thin walled. I certainly wouldn't have been welding by 10 am on the first day, but I was brazing.

Even the comments from my mates about being worried riding a bike I made have long since dried up, never crosses my mind that the frame will fail. I've even allowed it to get muddy n stuff too!


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## Mr Ed (14 Jan 2009)

Excellent and very enlightening.

Cheers, Ed


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## les chicken (14 Jan 2009)

Nice project and very rewarding to ride the bike you built yourself.
Reminds me of back in the 1970s when I was contracting, the project I had was to design and manufacture the jigs for manufacturing the frames for blkes for a company called HALMANCO ( Halfords manufacturing company ) Each of the frames were then brazed or silver soldered together to retain the qualities of the steel tubed frames.

Very rewarding type of job.

Les


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## shim20 (14 Jan 2009)

post it up would be good, ive just started a santa cruz build for some crazy downhill fun


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## jasonB (14 Jan 2009)

Think you have missed a page shim, have a look part way down page 2 :wink: 

Jason


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## Ironballs (14 Jan 2009)

A Santa Cruz, you must be a man of means.

If anyone is interested in the course or Dave Yates then hop on over to www.daveyatescycles.co.uk and check it out, he also does pieces of engineering work and has some very nice lathes and milling machines, so if you ever need that kind of expertise he's the man to go to

The one thing that did strike me was the marking and measuring, now granted I was using his jig which sets all the angles and holds everything in place, but not once did I use a ruler/measure or marking implement other than a big felt pen for making a rough line. Everything was done by eye and through repeated checking to ensure a fit, all you had to do was cut long to start with and work back till they go together.

I was doing hand cut dovetailed drawers at the time so this approach was both quite alien and quite refreshing. I also think that most people go through a mental "writing their letter of resignation" phase when on the course, with a view to becoming a full time frame builder!

Built my own bike, making my own furniture, just the own a Ferrari box left to tick then


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## shim20 (15 Jan 2009)

jasonB":1incv5pb said:


> Think you have missed a page shim, have a look part way down page 2 :wink:
> 
> Jason



wooops yes, all i can say is awsome, thats quite a skill to build what you did, keep up the good work


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## Wanlock Dod (16 Jan 2009)

Thats a lovely looking bike Ironballs.

Does it have bridgeless chainstays? I didn't see any going in. By the way, I can attest to the quality of the speedhub. I had my 8 year old one fitted on a new bike just recently and it still works as well as it did years ago. Sadly the same can't be said of the 'Dale it started life on.

Cheers,

Dod


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## OPJ (17 Jan 2009)

Thanks for sharing, this has been a very interesting project to follow!


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## Ironballs (17 Jan 2009)

The chainstays are bridgeless, they used to be put there for two reasons, one was to add some rigidity and the other was to act as a support for a mudguard. I don't have that kind of mudguard so need for it for that reason and as for the rigidity.... apparently there has been a lot of debate amongst frame builders (they have forums too!) and the consensus is that as the bridge is so close to the BB it imparts little extra rigidity and only serves to weaken the tubes as you're applying more heat along their length.

I wanted the extra mud clearance as well so the bridge was never a consideration. We were allowed little personal modifications within reason if we wanted, one chap on a previous course had made his seat stay bridge out of a section of cog from the cassette, looked very good in the pictures.


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## Benchwayze (18 Jan 2009)

Very nice looking bike... The close up of that rear wheel did my eyes in a bit. As I scrolled down the tyre seemed to be revolving, but the valve stayed in the same place! I think I better get a new monitor or some new specs! 
:lol:


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