It's been two months since I've posted. Hadn't really done too much until I got the top tube, chain stays, and seat stays bent. I used a standing heavy duty conduit bender and torched the .120 1 1/8" DOM for the top tube. I don't recommend this hack method but I got lucky. The 1" die was actually 1 1/8", the 3/4" die was 7/8", and who knows about the 1/2"! What junk some of these things are.
I had to modify the smallest 1/2" die to fit the 3/4" tubing. The 3/4" tubing is thin wall so you have to be really careful with that unless you have a proper bender. Thin wall likes to crinkle on the inside of the radius.
Here is the top tube. It's all just tacked for now. I hope to have a buddy tig it for me when I get it together. The mig might penetrate enough but if I'm riding it........ The bend doesn't look too bad considering.
Here are some shots laying out the chain stays.
The Workmate was leveled after the frame was secure.
The plywood is only for marking and for horizontal layout. I struck lines on each side of the main tubes and reverse engineered what I needed from my known rear axle width of 4.227". Vertical setup will be off a known level surface that I'll set up then. The chainstays will actually be 10 degrees from horizontal and milled with slots for the dropouts. You can see the dropouts which themselveswill be oriented at about a 20 degree angle. It sure would be nice if it was all horizontal but I want it to look correct. Remember, those shortcuts add up and you end up with a generic looking bicycle mod IMO.
Speaking of bicycles:
Here is one of the few parts taken from a bicycle - the bottom bracket(for the crank). This and a 70's fork. I will gusset the bottom bracket well before it's done. Some racers had no gussets there and some did via some funky suspension brackets. I suspect these to be class C machines - racers prepped from street frames and not production racers. I welcome the bracket for the extra support.
After I struggle through this part - mostly trying to keep it all even, I will address the fork mods. That will be a different headache for a different post.
