March is in the books

Thanks for checking in!

During March, several things happen in my life.  High School baseball starts, Little League baseball starts, at work we start planning for the coming fiscal year and yardwork starts to pile up.  For me, March comes in like a lamb and leaves like a lion!

Luckily, most of the heavy lifting has been done on the JBMV bikes and I was able to drop them off at Seattle Powder Coat before work on Friday.  Below I touch on some key points in the process to get you all up to speed.  But first, I wanted to reveal the color.  I’m super excited about this color.

Here’s the completed fork with a shot of the crown.

These cast wishbones are really nice to work with

Some initial finish work on the fillets.  There is still more work to do here but, I like to use pictures to actually see how I am progressing.  I can zoom in and see all of the little imperfections.

Here I have the front triangle and chainstays on the alignment table checking to make sure everything is in plane.

I also build each frameset up at this point to make sure everything fits as it was designed.  There are pictures of that stage on my flickr page.

After adding the seatstays, I build each one up again and coast up and down the street to make sure I like where I’ve landed.  At this point, it’s pretty difficult to change anything so, this is really a Go/No Go point.

For these small track bikes, I called in my Junior Test Pilot to do a few test runs.

Last week we received all the gear from FSA and Vision.  Man this stuff is sweet.  Even the reasonably priced stuff is really nice.

 

And then putting the finishing touches on these bikes.  I like to bring the tips to a point so wheel install is easier.  These will have bolt on wheels and the wheels won’t be removed very frequently but it’s something I do for me.  With quick release wheels, I sometimes braze on lips to ensure the user doesn’t make a mistake when they’re out on the road and the oxygen in the blood is a bit thin.

Finally dropping the 4 frames off at Seattle Powder Coat.  Next up is receiving in wheels, tires, and a few other bits.

 

Thanks for following along.  I’m off to our first baseball game of the season.