After the dropouts are brazed in and the flux is soaked off, you are left with this. I have built up a little extra bronze on the top and bottom to sculpt. Here you can see the dropout and blade after filing. I have removed a lot of material from the dropout itself, as well as smooth the transition blade to drop. Here you can see the progression. I try…

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The first step in preparing the blades is to bend them. I have a nice aluminum mandrel for this. As you can see in the photo below, the tips of the blades are still straight. In order to provide a nice radius all the way to the tip, I bend the blades a little more than required and then cut them back to where the bend actually starts. You can…

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Getting started on the fork involves brazing the steerer into the crown. The steerer passes all the way through the Richie-Issimo crown. The parts are fluxed, the steerer is inserted, and the joint is heated. In the photo below, you can see that the silver has flowed all the way through the joint. I feed the silver from the crown race side. The bottom of the crown has been finish-filed…

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Lastly, here is the steel. Seat Tube: Deda Zero 28.6 mm 0.8/0.45/0.65 Top Tube: Deda Zero 28.6 mm 0.65/0.4/0.65 Down Tube : Deda Zero 31.7 mm 0.65/0.45/0.56 Chain Stays : Deda Zero 30×17 mm oval 0.7/0.45 Seat Stays – Tange Prestige Conico 10/14 mm 0.6 I’ll post the fork blades as I get started on the fork.

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In keeping with the Richie-Issimo theme, here is the ST lug and crown. I have already brazed the steerer into the crown and finish-filed where the steerer passes through the bottom. Also shown is Richard’s new FD braze-on, which looks sweet indeed. Front and rear dropouts. These will be trimmed down and cleaned up quite a bit. Bottle bosses with reinforcements. Next up will be the tubing…

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Let’s get this party started

So, we begin with MP’s 50.2 cm road frameset. Below is a picture of the tubes and the castings that will be used. Top left, you can see the tubing that will be used. All Deda Zero, except for the fork blades and seat stays, which are Prestige. Bottom left are the dropouts. Verticals for this race bike, please. Center stage is the crown with the steerer brazed in. Bottom…

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Lots of cool stuff going on

So many fun projects….so little time. I am putting together two fabrication pictorials. I have always wanted to put together a set of photos that show the entire build process for a frame and fork. I am psyched to do this with two different style bikes and two different fabrication techniques. The first is MP’s road bike. This will be a 50.2 cm lugged, road frameset built with castings from…

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