The bike is a pretty odd one - sort of a monstercross frame, but with Paragon sliders (for chainstay length adjustment) and a super-slack seat angle for Ken's weirdly long-femured self. Oh, and rack mounts, s-bends, all sorts of cable stops and guides, and S&S couplers. Not a light frame at all once all that stuff is welded and brazed on, but a very versatile one.
For those who are curious, the hose going into the top of the seat tube in the first photo is pumping argon into the frame while I weld the chainstays on. This has the effect of minimizing the distortion and oxidization of the back side of the weld inside the bottom bracket shell, which is nice because it help minimize the amount of thread chasing that's necessary. The shell itself isn't thin enough to need the backpurge, but bottom bracket taps aren't cheap - so I like to make them last as long as possible. 25 cents worth of argon on each frame has allowed me to still be using the same taps (after over 300 frames) without even sharpening the cutters.
3 comments:
Sure it only costs a quarter, but think about all those suffering argon miners. Have you no sense of social justice?
grersh! (says the word verification)
Ah, yes, the poor argon miners...
Interestingly enough, to get pure argon, you compress and cool air until it's a liquid, then slowly raise the temp and let the various gasses boil off (and collect them). Pretty amazing stuff!
... i wish i had weird long femurs...
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