Busy week

The new shop is finally feeling good. Made lots of metal chips, melted lots of silver, and burnt lots of acetylene this week.

S&S Coupled road frame.

Fillet brazed cyclocross frame.

Another road frame headed to New Hampshire hills.

A road frame destined for some serious dirt road riding.

More to do...

Final torch work for the week

Off to a party here at the mill.

Chainring fetish

And these are feeding my addiction. Time to test.

38/44 Campy CT

36/42 SRAM

Methodology

I dig working in batches. That's not to be confused with doing production runs where everything is the same size. These are still all unique to their future owners. But it drives me crazy doing every single step once. It completely offends my sensibilities. It also runs counter to all of the training I have received through school and my time in industry. Granted, this is not a production environment per se the way an injection molding shop is. But still, something just feels wrong going to my tool box, getting a drill bit, getting my drill, chucking it up, drilling two holes, taking out the bit, putting it away, and then putting away the drill. Why not drill 6 more holes and then not have to drill holes for a while? You save yourself a lot of time. Yeah, it takes some planning in terms of materials and having designs lined up and ready. But it's nice knowing I've reduced the footsteps around the shop overall. And I do love getting into a groove brazing a bunch at one time. It feels fantastic when things are flowing and each successive brazing operation feels better than the one previous to it. I love having a day when I have 3 or 4 frames that are tacked, aligned, and ready for final brazing and then I just braze and braze. Glorious. Anyway, what's with the rant, right? I guess I'm grumpy because Rebecca's been away for two weeks. And I wish I was in Bend at Natz. Sounds like it is going to be a great race week. But we have Ice Weasels to look forward to here in New England, so that will be sweet. And the wifey gets back from India tomorrow. I guess I'll just watch Manning throw three more interceptions again tonight. Zing! I just lost some sales in Indy.

Here's the start of four bikes.

Good luck to everyone racing this weekend!

Ready for some Florida cyclocross action

Yes, they have cyclocross in Florida, and it's growing. I love seeing regions develop across the country. Maybe now that Nationals is in January, somebody in South Beach will submit a proposal to host! No offense, Madison.

Anyway, this machine is Florida bound to tackle some racing.

Thanks, Rafael!

Cyclocross chainring project moving along

Just got a couple of photos of a sample SRAM/Shimano 110 bcd 42 tooth outer after the hard anodizing and I am very excited with how they look. This is before the shifting pins and chain drop pin are added. With the hard ano on the 7075, these are going to be to tough as nails. I won't get many repeat customers because they won't wear out! We're on schedule to have real production ready for NAHBS at the end of February.