Still gearing up for Ti frames. Ti requires backpurging throughout the welding process, a huge gas lens and a strict sterilizing procedure. 

Those who make high end Ti frames use an Ultrasonic cleaner to do a thorough sterilizing job, so I'm making space for one of these:

http://www.isonicinc.com/P4890-closed-6x3.jpg

In other news, I'm building a few more bikes for myself. A fat/sandbike and this 24" parkbike:

73 HA, 72 SA

22.3" Top tube

14.25 CS

12.7" BB height

True Temper Butted top and DT

I chose a pretty slack head angle as the others I'v built/ridden were 74-75 and felt too steep. 

I might put this one up for sale on Pinkbike if the fork parts don't get here soon enough. There was a hiccup getting fork legs bent, so I might be on the look out for a local source. Still waiting to hear back though...

 Lots of stuff piling up while waiting on powder orders and some low humidity days.

A new dropout for the little bikes

A friend brought this (Californian) frame to the park and let me have it to cut up. I thought it weird that a frame that supposedly had Supertherm main tubes would break in such an odd place - the DT gusset had just about cracked off completely. When I cut the DT near the BB it was apparent that the miters might have been pretty sloppy. The DT shifted about 20mm when I got all the way through it. This was probably a big contributor to the break. The bigger factor was an inferior welding procedure: the gusset was welded to the downtube and then mitered/welded to the headtube. Notice in the pic below that the crack propagated where the weldor neglected to weld the DT to the headtube first. They would have been better off not using gussets at all.

Gregs 26

Forks: Rockshox Franken-fork (Argyle RCT lowers and guts, Sektor tapered CSU)--originally white lowers, now black and lowered. 
Bars: Custom 3" rise 4 piece Standard. 10 back 2 up 28wide
Cranks: Saint 180mm (no longer made)

24 BMX

I built myself a 24". It always helps to have a reference (for things like brake arm clearance) laying around. It has clearance for my Maxxis 2.4"s (NOS that are apparently discontinued).  Unfortunately the forks that are available will clear a 2.25". I am *going to make forks as soon as possible.

Greg's black to trans black: 14.7" CS, 27.2mm seatpost, tapered 34/44 headtube, Supertherm stays

 John's trails 20": 21.6 TT, 14.2" CS, 11.7 BB height

The captured nut seat clamp looks better, functions better and welds easier so I will try to use them on all the Stout frames from now on.

 Captured nut pinch clamp: much easier to weld but they cost 11X times as much as the normal ones.

 This frame will fit a 2.15" tire slammed at 14.7" and a 2.35" at about 14.9". Its got a Supertherm rear end which is .4 lbs lighter than the usual 1.2mm thick stays.

Powder

The winter weather has kind of put a bottle neck on stuff, specifically with powdercoating. I coat things on the porch of my studio so I am a bit susceptible to wind and rain. We had a good day finally and I got 3 of the ones in queue knocked out. I still have about ten others to go and it looks like this week is gonna be clear out.

The first tapered headtube I have built with. Definitely looking forward to seeing this one built out

 this color is pretty sweet- changes black to sparkle depending on lighting. Blackberry something...