It's been a busy week for me. First, I finished the replacement fork for my track bike. It came together really nicely, and required no post-brazing alignment. After a little clean-up with emery cloth, it was off to the powdercoaters to get a lick of 'precious steel pearl'. I'm using a new powdercoaters who so far seem very laid back. Let's hope that translates to 'easy to deal with' rather than 'incompetent and lazy'.

With the fork out of the way there was really no excuse left to prevent me from finishing off the wishbone rear end on my road frame. Way back in the mists of time I had brazed the wishbone connector into the 19mm connector tube. This left me with the following tasks to complete:

• mitering the connector tube to fit the seat tube;
• brazing the chainstays into the wishbone piece;
• brazing the connector tube to the back of the seat tube on the specially reinforced seat lug; and
• brazing the dropouts in place.

I really should have taken more photos to document this momentous day, but my focus was on finishing the damn thing rather than blogging it. But I did take a couple. So now the flux is soaked off and the long process of clean-up begins.




There is an unfortunate amount of surface rust on the tubes thanks to the condensation in the shed, so it will require a fair bit of careful work with the emery cloth before I can call it good. I have no doubt that the clean-up will reveal a heap of little defects that need to be corrected, but that's life. I'm already thinking of the next frame: a disc braked cyclocross steed.

I'm ashamed to say that it's been nearly 12 months since I last updated this blog. There are a whole heap of reasons - some good, some not so good. But what it boils down to is that I've just not been in the right headspace for building stuff, and as a consequence, stuff has not got built.

A recent email conversation with budding framebuilder Ben has made me realise that I had really better get of my arse and fire up the torch again. I've been commuting a fair bit recently and on fair weather days would like to ride my fixed gear bike. When I built it I made a traditional track fork for it with round fork blades, a flat crown and no brake hole. Rather than drill a brake hole in what is quite a nice looking track fork, I thought I'm make up a road fork for the bike.

The plan is for a pretty conservative 45mm rake, using a nice semi-sloping crown I had knocking around. Below is the bones of my very high-tech fork bender, which is basically a lump of redgum fencepost, which I cut to a constant radius and routed a groove into.



In time, it will have a neat clamp to secure the dropout end, but for the moment, this rather bodgy arrangement of a grooved block and a g-clamp will have to suffice.



Or so I thought until I started bending the second blade. Trojan brand g-clamps from Bunnings might as well be made from cheese. Definitely not impressed.



It took some careful fettling to get both blades even, and to the right rake, but against the odds, I managed it. Version 2.0 of the bender will definitely have a depth stop so I can at least do the basic bend to the same point. Leverage is provided by a length of RHS slipped over the blade Primitive, but it works.



Somewhat to my surprise, given the length of time I've been away from the tools, the trial fit-up was almost perfect. I think I should trim perhaps 1mm off the dropout end of the blades, as the fit is a fraction tight lengthwise, and not quite tight enough in terms of fitting into the dropout socket. Since it was dark by this point and Heather was inside drinking shiraz with a friend, I though I'd call it quits at this point and do the final trimming cleaning and brazing tomorrow.

The weather here is bloody cold, and it's been drizzling non-stop for about a week. Fortunately, I've got a heap of wood cut and stacked in the woodshed, and the shed heater I made last year gets the drafty shed up to a temperature that's at least tolerable, even if it's not actually pleasant. Polly and Shamus, my faithful wolfhound-cross dogs, were very content.