Monday, April 27, 2015

Gregs risers
Mike got his 22 frame and fork built up

AZ

buzzed out to Arizona to catch the few last cool days.
 The new Mesa/Mcdowell park is awesome. Its a public park, maintained by the city with water/bathrooms, shade areas and a safe parking lot

 The biggest line is scary but can be done on a BMX bike apparently. The guy on the 20" said it was his first run at them too. The jump above is pretty lofty, but it is also at the top of the mountain so it feels like your're way up there.  The medium line is very fast, flowy and easy. Can't wait to go back when it is ~55*F out instead of sunny 85*. I looked like a turnip after only a few all-day rides.


                                                
These step downs were fun but I bottomed my fork out easily (they are 20-25' out and 6' down). This dude hit them on a 20".
 Costco has seen better days. Slowly recovering from the fires in Prescott.
 Kurt messing around in a last ditch effort to have fun. The wind and rain put a damper on the Prescott run.
Most of the drive looks like this: desert, shrubs and mountains off in the distance.

Sunday, April 19, 2015

 titanium tubes bent without issue (no noises or external cracks anyway). I have worried about this for a while: Some have said that CWSR tubes can crack and that half annealed or full annealed tubes are necessary for forming TI tubes.
 disc 24ork ready to go

Friday, April 17, 2015

Wednesday, April 15, 2015

pine needles + ice = Pinecrete


 Rose weld on a burly seat tube



Just a thought for fork braces...
1.25"X.058" fork leg bending:
I once heard that the compressive strength of ice is increased with the addition of sawdust (actually called Pykrete) It turns out that pine needles do a really good job as well: The ice stayed frozen for much longer than normal_ I usually only have a few minutes before the tube starts dripping. The Pinecrete tube didn't seem to drip even ten minutes after bending.

The mixture expanded much less than just straight ice. It normally blows the plugs out by a few inches, but here it didn't seem to change volume at all.

The goal was to make the profile of the bend rounder and it did make for a .5mm difference in diameter.
 Thanks Aaron Huff for the headset! Definitely going oldschool on my next headtube:

 made these heat sinks into purge sinks

Saturday, April 11, 2015

Supertherm 425mm ATC MTB fork

This one is sitting at 2.3 lbs. A pound lighter than the 420mm (with bent legs and a one piece machined steerer). Not for dirt jumping or skatepark use:
Practicing with the pulser function on the little blue box. The arc on the Miller starts way brighter and seems to damage ones eyes unless they are closed for that initial arc. My Lincoln does not have this problem. Welding with a pulser is like drawing with a strobe light.

Friday, April 10, 2015



Mikes Stout 22"
Solidworks model from Vernon's sketch: steerer and drops done, just have to figure out butted leg thickness
Its a fairly straight forward fat bike ride. The 4 wheeler trails have more elevation and mileage than the MTB trails around here.
I really hope this place won't suck. I'm seeing a big race track and not too much in the way of concrete park design.

Wednesday, April 8, 2015

This alligator snapper hated the boat ramp that I took him to, so we went down to a swamp up the street. Much better.


the first ten forks that I made were mitered on a fixture. I didn't know how much easier it would be to cut legs individually in a nice little rotating vise.

Friday, April 3, 2015

Doug's disc 22" wheeler: jolly rancher red


A few 22" forks: disc with smaller dropouts and one peg capable fork

A 21.75" top tube disc 22" wheeler with no home