First Frame ..... ready to tack weld....

Well - I am ready to weld up the frame... almost. I got a lot accomplished on Friday. I faced the head tube, drilled the air expansion / purge holes in the bottom bracket, heat tube and seat tube. I put the finishing touches on the ends of the seat and chain stays, fabricated a new seat tube sleeve - 25mm longer than the previous one, removed the layout die, scrubbed and cleaned the tubes, and did a final tube fitting check once everything was clean.

During the final fit up - I did notice a few small fit issues that I want to address with a file, but that shouldn't take too much time.

I still want to do a small custom artistic design on the front of the seat tube sleeve - and I just ordered a jewelers saw, a gross of saw blades, and some blade wax for that project - it should be here early this week. That needs to be done before I tack things together - because I am planning on cutting the design into the sleeve but not through into the seat tube itself.

 

This week I managed to get together all the necessary fittings and connectors to Argon purge the frame both in the fixture and out. Jeff at the local AirGas was very helpful - he helped me sort it all out and make the connections that I needed. After several trips to the hardware store, plumbing supply, and tool supply shop, I now have the plumbing in place to correctly connect the frame fixture to the Argon supply. And, I have the parts and tools needed to make a multiple port manifold to distribute the Argon to the heat sinks, and plugs for welding outside of the fixture. I'll post a picture of the manifold once I get it built up - I don't expect it to be anything fancy or special - just get the job done.  I am anxiously awaiting the arrival of my head tube and seat tube heat sinks....to make sure they fit into the purge scheme as expected - not to mention that I will be needing them to weld up the frame.

Time to order up some tubing to build the seat and chain stay bridges - as well as some fork blades and some seat post binders.

While I am waiting for the parts to arrive, I can begin to fit up the rear cantilever brake mounts and document the work I did on fitting the stays on the rear dropouts so I don't have to figure out how to do that from scratch again. I can also build up the multiple port argon purge manifold, contact Pierre at Blaze Cycles down south and see if he is interested in painting up this frame for me, and I can start getting the parts ordered to build up this frame.