NAHBS 2012 - Award for Best City Bicycle

I exhibited at NAHBS in Sacramento March 2nd - 4th.

This was my first time to attend / exhibit at NAHBS, the show was fantastic, NAHBS exceeded my expectations in every way.

It was amazing to see so much talent in one place. I really enjoyed catching up with and meeting my fellow frame builders, and am thankful that I was able to  experience NAHBS first hand.

I was honored and amazed to be awarded Best City Bicycle for my Mezzaluna Mixte.

Here are some recent photos on flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/musecycles/sets/72157625844433850/

Here is a link to some more photos, courtesy of DirtRag

http://www.flickr.com/photos/musecycles/galleries/72157629519884937/

Here is a brief description of the Mezzaluna Mixte:

http://2012.handmadebicycleshow.com/2012-awards/2012/02/11/city-muse/

Here is a pictorial description of the features of the Mezzaluna Mixte:

http://www.musecycles.com/signature-series/

Thank you for your support!

Milling machine up and running...

Just a quick post to share a few photos of the milling machine up and running mitering tubes.

New Shop Layout. I had waited to build permanent benches and set up this corner of the workshop until I purchased the Milling Machine. New bench for the little lathe dedicated to slotting, and a new bench for the sander, grinder, buffer, and a rack on the back of the bench for storing raw straight gauge 4130.

New mitering fixtures on the Milling machine. It took a week or so of greasy, heavy work to get this machine fully operational again. I havent worked with parts this akward and heavy since my days wrenching on old tractors, bulldozers and farm equipment.

Mitering the Down Tube Head Tube miter. This fixture takes rigidity, accuracy, and speed to a whole new level. This mitering setup also allows me to miter curved main triangle tubes.

The Sputnik Tool Main Tube Mitering Fixture - a very well thought out and well made fixture - worth every penny.

Little Lathe for Slotting finally has a good home that is tucked out of the way. Room for shelves above and drawers below. Still looking for appropriate shelves and drawers at the UCSB surplus yard.

The front view of the Milling machine. There is a gap large enough between the fixtures to mount a tilting table and the custom Seat Stay mitering fixture that Jeff @ Sputnik is making for me that will allow me to miter curved seat stays like those found on the MezzaLuna Mixte.

The Sputnik Tool chain stay mitering fixture. Once it was all dialed in the first time - mitering the chain stays only took about 1 minute. A HUGE time savings over the other method of hand filing / fitting up each chain stay individually and comparing their fit until they matched one another as close to perfect as possible.

The fixture is mounted in the vise, to allow me to still be able to use the milling machine for milling drilling operations. The angle plate fits well in the jaws of the vise and requires less than 5 minutes to install / remove / re-align. 

The Static phase converter that makes the third leg of the 220 3 phase power  during startup of the milling machines 2HP motor. After the motor is running at full RPM the  Static phase converter stop making that third leg and the machine runs at 1/3 of its rated 2HP.    

New used Milling Machine

I have recently obtained a used Milling Machine to help speed up the bicycle tube mitering process. Using a milling machine, along with several dedicated fixtures to accurately and quickly miter the tubes - is common practice among frame builders.

 
This milling machine is a Brideport Clone made in 1980. It weighs about 2200 lbs, has 8 speeds, and a 9x42 inch table. The machine is operational - but it is rather dirty and generally in need of a overhaul. Over the next week I will disassemble, clean, replace / repair necessary parts and re-assemble it.

Once I have overhauled it - I will then re-align everything and install the fixtures needed to miter tubes.

Stay tuned for more photos of the process. you can see more photos of the delivery / landing of this machine on my flickr site here

New Website - Check it out and give me some feedback if you feel so inclined.

For some of you the new website may be old news. Anyway by the time I finally got the new website up and running a week or so ago - I was way over my self imposed computer time limit - and I just didn't have the stomach for any more computer time to post this update.

Here is the deal - I have been needing to update my website for quite some time now and seeing how nobody offered their webmaster skills in exchange for a bicycle frame - I hunkered down a the computer way too many times in the wee hours of the morning and came up with what you see here.

Well - in my opinion it is loads better than the previous website (which I built from scratch - old school with plain old HTML, JavaScript and CSS). The new website is built upon Wordpress - which means that a lot of the functionality you see was already available - I only needed to invest the time to figure out how to get it to work. Basically I used Wordpress because it will require a whole lot less work on my end to update or add content. In theory - Wordpress will also make it easier for me to add new features.

The website is still not completely where I want it to be - there was only so much HTML, CSS, PHP, research on Wordpress, and computer time in general I could muster up the appetite for. So the offer still stands - if you got mad skills with Wordpress or webmaster skills in general and you also fancy a new custom bicycle lets talk.

If you have not done so already - take a minute to sign up for the Muse Cycles Email List. Don't worry about a lot of unwanted email from Muse Cycles - my appetite for creating and sending email campaigns is very small. However - it is a great way for me to get the word out, and I do use it on occasion.

In the mean time - I am going to get back to work building bicycles.

Muse Mezza Luna Mixte with 350W BionX - pedalec

I was recently commissioned to design and build a Mezza Luna Mixte with a pedelec electric assist.

After looking into many electric assist options - the choice of the BionX electric assist was a clear choice. The BionX unit offers superior quality and interface at a reasonable price. The BionX is also available in a compatible form factor to integrate into the Mezza Luna Mixte. To learn more about the BionX unit used a PL350 HT RR M - visit the BionX site

Here @ http://www.bionx.ca/en/products/product-range/northamerica/

Quick Highlights of the build are:

• 350 Watts of electric assist with a weight penalty of 17 lbs - which includes the rear wheel

• The BionX is a electric assist / pedelec unit that can be set to either multiply the power provided by the rider at the pedals, charge the battery ( for down hill applications this works like a brake), or can be setup to provide up to 350W of electric assist without pedaling.

• The BionX unit utilizes a 9 speed freewheel

• The BionX model pictured above (rear rack mount battery) can also be a 500W unit, or a smaller non rack mount unit can be mounted in the front triangle instead of a water bottle.

• The BionX model pictured also has a integrated rear light and the ability to power an external front light/s. In the bicycle pictured above the front light is powered by the BionX unit so a front dynamo hub is no longer needed. The BionX unit can be set to charge the battery power the lights if the battery is running low.

• Paul Components Racer and Cantilever brakes were utilized - great powerful effective brakes - and great looking - made right here in California.

This bicycle is an example of the Imagination Series bicycles offered by Muse Cycles. The client really liked the looks of the Mezza Luna Mixte but really wanted to integrate an Electric assist into the bicycle.

I look forward the opportunity to integrate the BionX products in further custom bicycles - if another client desires to have a pedalec electric assist.

Repurposing an old lathe into a dedicated slotting machine

Atlas / Craftsman 6 inch Metal Lathe

I am not really sure how old this lathe is - apparently Atlas began manufacturing this model 1936. The serial number stamped on the bed is 24117.

I recently came across this old lathe when cleaning out my fathers shop after he passed away. It was pretty small for most of my metal lathe projects - but I quickly realized that I could create a dedicated fixture with it, and only have to put forth a little money in parts and invest a little time.

I often use tab style dropouts for front and rear dropouts. Up until now I have been slotting the chain stays, seat stays and fork blades to accept these slotted dropouts by hand. Hacksaw and file. Its not exactly difficult, but it takes time - especially if I want to put the slot in at an angle as opposed to right down the middle of the stay.

I decided to put a arbor and a slotting saw in the chuck and convert the tool holder / rest into a clamp to hold the stay.

The lathe has a backgear - which significantly slows down the rpms and ups the torque. According to the manual I can attain a rpm of 54 by utilizing the backgear. This will help me maintain the SFM / cutting speed of a 3 inch slotting saw which will be required to make appropriate slots in stay / fork blades.

My research yields:

SFM = 0.262 x D x RPM

SFM = 0.262 x 3 x 54

SFM = 43 Feet Per Minute

Further research yields 65 SFM for Heat Treated 4130 and 120 SFM listed for regular 4130. So this should work great on Heat Treated 4130 stays / fork blades - As long as I keep the feed rate really slow and steady.

Here is a picture of it in action.

Basically - the setup requires a modified a v-block, and a T-Nut to hold the stay on the tool rest. as you can see from the picture - I clamp the stay as close as possible to minimize vibrations.

Here is a picture of a test slot I made - it came out pretty nice. Looking forward to using it for the next bicycle in the queue.

Bici Bonita Fashion Show

Bici Bonita Fashion Show, a set on Flickr.

We were proud to be a part of the recent Bici Bonita Bicycle Fashion Show, that happened on Thursday May 5th in Santa Barbara CA.

More Info at:

http://www.bicibonita.org/index/about.html

http://cyclemaynia.ning.com/