nice day out

A neon orange color accomplished with the tennis ball yellow plus a trans orange top coat:

 I refer to Alain's 24" MTB a lot so here it is again:

 Swaffords Anthills frame

Alain's parky 24:

 I didn't mention it in the post, but that broken Californian frame got a Stout downtube (bigger 1.5" diameter and a properly welded gusset) Better then new, with a pearl gray coat:

 Andrews light 20"

big 24" wheeler

I ground out some 10mm dropouts to 14mm and actually had just enough room for a peg. The caps are too close when slammed but this could be resolved with a washer (between the peg and dropout).

These 22mm Supertherm chainstays are much stiffer than the 19mm ones. The drawbacks are they leave a few mm. less room for cranks and they're a little too short to be used for 26" wheels.

Fastest, most energy efficient bike I've ridden at the park. The 73* HA was perfect for 24" wheels. I suspect it has to do with fork offset and trail but all I can say for sure is that I much prefer it over 74.5*. It feels similar to a 74* HA on the 22" wheels. I don't recommend these Alienation rims for heavy dudes, as they are a bit flexy. I'll probably switch to a Hazard rear rim soon.

 I couldn't wait so I whipped a fork together from some thick tubes I had laying around: 2.15mm thick steerer with a welded on race, 1.125" dia .058" legs butt welded with gussets, and a nut welded in the left side dropout/tube for the peg.

 The peg on the left attached to a separate 14mm hollow axle

 Quick little steel seat post made from old parts

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 slowly 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

13.15" BB height with the big 2.4" tires

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. I am also looking into investing in a nice hydraulic tubing bender.

 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 (random BMX) 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 tension 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)