Frame Number 1 - A Fixed Wheel Bike

My first try at framebuilding. I'd built a fixed-wheel bike out of an old roadie, and had an enormous amount of fun riding around the place on it. However, the frame was a tad big, and I'd developed this itch to try my hand at building my own frame. I thus decided I'd make a fixed-wheel bike - a sort of mongrel road/track cross. High bottom bracket and rear opening forkends like a track bike, but with a front end more amenable to riding on the road. I figure if I want to try my hand at track racing (not that I'm any good at anything under 200km) I'd have a bike to do it on.

It's built using Columbus Thron tubing, which is a relatively inexpensive double-butted tubeset with reasonably thick butted ends. It uses Saba lugs, with a Long-Shen bottom bracket, and Long-Shen forkends. I brazed this one at work, during lunch-hours, under the watchful eye of an experienced welder.

I used BikeCAD to design the frame. It's 54.5cm square, with a 74 degree seat tube angle and 73.5 degree head tube angle. The head angle provides 55mm of trail with a 40mm fork offset (Look HS3).

There was a lot of work involved in manipulating the bottom bracket shell so that it fit my mix of angles. I figured I'd further personalise it by cutting my initials in the bottom. Being a fixed wheel bike, of course, there are no cables passing by here.

After brazing and cleaning up. It looks good at first glance (much work with scraper and needle files ensures that), but careful inspection of the join between the seat tube and bottom bracket shows bubbling of the filler and poor penetration. Must try harder with the bottom bracket brazing.

The forkends worked okay. The brazing was nothing to write home about, but the home-made stainless faces on the forkends are a nice touch.

You can see more evidence of bubbled filler around the seat-lug. This isn't a highly stressed join though, so I never had trouble with it. I managed to get the seat stays mitred fairly neatly though, and did a reasonable fillet in silver.

The head lugs aren't so bad, but I really did put a lot of excess filler in to them.

The brake bridge (the last join on this frame) actually went fairly well. Correct amount of filler, didn't fry the poor stuff. The result is a neat, strong join with a minimum of stuffing around.

And finally the whole thing. It's nice and straight, and a passable first attempt.

Now for the painted version. I learned a lot about painting with this frame, and even made decals for it. Thus Little Fish Bicycles is born. With a little work, we can have a bicycle for every fish, whether they need it or not.

The paint went on heavier than it should have - note the rounding of the lug edges - these should be crisp and clear. I blame myself for not having enough of a clue of what I was doing, not to mention spraying un-reduced Imron with a huge tip. Gotta say though, the little fish logo looks kinda cool. The white bits above and below are teeth - it represents our hero being chased by a much bigger fish - reminiscent of how I feel when I race handicap races.

The forkends came up quite nicely. This is the beginnings of a love-hate relationship with stainless. Love the look and the durability, hate the amount of work that goes into it :) Actually I have to admit to loving the work too, but then I'm a sick puppy.

More evidence of excessively thick paint. Looks a bit like powder coat. The decals look nice though. I couldn't help putting my name on it. I'm like a proud mum.

One of the larger decals. It's feindishly difficult to put these on straight without trapping air under them, but they're worth the effort.

And finally the whole ensemble, ready to tear up the streets. A very fun bike to ride, and not too disgraceful as a first attempt. I sure learnt a lot.

Go on to Frame number 2, a fast touring bike.