SNAKE DRIVER

So the story starts like this with my dad's friend, Marshal. We spent much of our time at Marshal's house as kids. He always had something going on in the shop and always had the best / craziest stories. His spirit is a memorable one of 'this is good but how can we make it even better?' He's always taken a road less traveled, embracing the unexpected and pushed his skills to the limit. A carpenter by trade and had owned a business for some time doing custom work with a friend of his. They named their business "Snake Drivers". But as they found out, they kept getting calls from people asking them if they'd get rid of this animal, catch this and dispose of that. So one day Marshal gets another call for the Snake Drivers, this time from an elderly woman insisting that the ad stated Snake Drivers and she has one that needs catching.. Snake Catchers does not = Carpenters for her. So he figures "why not?" and they decided to scope this job out. The following adventure was two lefts and a right from no-where, them running around like idiots trying to catch this huge black rat snake, just a complete fire drill... In the end they managed to wrangle the beast for the woman.

But its that sense of adventure , the grin of finding the road less traveled and that exploring the unexpected that always left a big impression on me growing up that Marshal possessed with pretty much everything he set out to accomplish. That's the spirit of this build: a sense for adventure, exploring the unknown and the road less traveled. So I'm calling this one "the Snake Driver"...

GIDDY UP

Finally back from paint

Stainless photo-etched badges for the head & seat tubes..

DETAILS

Clearance for 2.5+ tires, 16.75" stays and an additional 2" of top tube clearance from the previous version..
Welds are starting to come together. Not happy with the heat effected zones here-but as Ted Jokes "It'll be ah-right.. It's just your frame."
Still have to add the jewelry and disk mount as well as shorten the top of the seatpost/slot it. But you get the idea here. Lots of stand over clearance, fairly active and compliant rear triangle and lots of tire clearance. This one was a challenge to put together that is for sure. But, that's what makes things interesting. I'd like to make the bends in the seat stays a little more gradual/sweeping but tooling on hand did not allow for this. We shall see when I move to production quality tubing. Still using 4130 strait gauge tubing to experiment with angles, etc. So far so good. Can't wait to finish this up and go for a ride.

29er V2

So after close to a year of riding the 1st prototype 29er...



I've gathered sufficient feedback to feel confident to put that to good use in a second revised version. Revisions include a slightly tightened head angle, lower bottom bracket height, longer tt to increase the cockpit just a bit, shorter chainstays, custom formed chainstays with room to spare for 2.5 tires, more stand over (approximately 2 more inches..), shortened the seattube length by an inch, headtube grew by about .125" and bottom bracket is now 73mm. New drops allow you to run single/gear setup. To achieve the16.75" chainstay length, (yes 16.75 with 29" with 29" wheels and a 2.5" tire..) the seat tube needed a radius. A few trial and error methods, a lot of feedback from very generous builders from all over the globe, and I got what I was after. Stoked.

Can't wait to fit the seat stays and put all the jewelry on-this should be a unique ride for sure.

This is pretty much the look I was after with the first one, but time and tooling did not permit. Side note: Another thing that's been in Ted's shop have been a bunch of motorcycles. I recently learned that Ted was quite the accomplished flat track racer at one time. But a good friend of his races vintage motorcycles and he stores them every so often at Ted's shop. I finally remembered my camera to take a shot or two of them. Unfortunately only 2 of the 4 were present this past friday, but my favorite was still there.



This little honda is pretty damned cool for its lack of size..

Try and Try again..

I had to make a lot of these...

To get one like this.

But I can repeat it. So that's a good thing. Can't wait to miter this and build the mainframe. This will be the seat tube. Stoked.

SILVER

As in brazing. Steel is very different from silver/gold (I was a goldsmith for a number of years before I went back to school for an industrial design degree.) So I'm finding I'm re-learning what I already know in terms of silver brazing/soldering with steel. Always great to learn new things, to refine your process and perfect your craft. With time, I'm confident I can leave no room for cleanup. I was taught that each step in your process should be held to the highest degree of quality. Every file stroke matters. Each time you perform a task, its in relation to the finished product so less work means more time and a more efficient craft. Each part matters-and this is not just in the design, but in the process of fabrication as well. The end result is not only a reflection of the time you spent but also the time you saved by perfecting your process.

LPS 3

I wrangled a Bridgeport J-Head a year ago and have been slowly getting it prepped. But in the meantime, its in storage so I've been rustproofing all the dials, handles etc. to protect it against moisture and corrosion. Enter LPS 3.. Spray on, wipe clean, let dry. Apparently you can let the part out in open sea spray for 2+ years and it won't corrode. We'll see as it tends to get some high moisture content in my shop. I hope to change that with a bunch of planned long term renovations. Pictured are some dials and goodies prepped and ready for LPS3-ification. Gotta love US Made Steel. Only way to go.

RIDE NOTES

Been doing a lot of riding locally as there is just so much right here under my nose. Found some trails but was informed that there were indeed much more-just well hidden from the common folk.. So I was given a tour this past week and man, what a ride!! The trails were beautiful, classic New England singletrack. This section here rolls through a descent inside a stand of managed Red Pine. I was white eyes and white teeth the whole way through-the whole ride I should say too. Simple rolling singletrack, great climbs with plenty of rocks, roots and tech. Some really nice sections and the locals have definitely been at it and building these very well. I'm stoked to have met some fine riders to have shown me around. Funny part is they often pop out in peoples driveways or backyards only to go back into the woods. So goes it in Live Free or Die Land. People are pretty supportive of bicycles around these neck of the woods which is great.

GETTING CLOSER..

Home for the week from the shop. Starting to look like bicycles..

Welded up..

Seatstays mitered and ready to be tacked..

Little DT/HT tack..

So these were a long time coming. Phil Wasson over at SUPER RAT MACHINE put the pedal to the metal with the nails on these puppies and machined them up from my cad files. STOKED. They came out beautifully, and I just can't wait to build up the more refined version of the 29er I've been working on. Actually it will be how i originally intended it to be, but given the time frame and funds I had at the time, some exceptions had to be made. But with some patience and time, (which i have..) things will come together nicely. These allow you to run gears or singlespeed setup without any extra parts or sliding bits. I really like the simplicity of traditional horizontal dropouts, and the ability to switch back and forth sometimes can be a challenge, especially when the switch often involves specialty parts, or other add-ons. The main goal was to design something that used existing parts in a traditional fashion. The pretty cool part for me as a designer is not only doing the design work, but getting to build from start to finish what i design. Can't describe how rewarding this can be. The best part is that first ride when you throw a leg over and start to put the bike through its paces. A lot of information and feedback is gained from this experience. Not only are you getting to realize your design, you're also getting vital feedback on each and every ride on how the design is handling different terrain, conditions and circumstances first hand and comparing that with how you intended the platform to ride and perform in these circumstances. This feedback is taken directly back to the drawing board and put into action. Another aspect that I love is during the production process; actually figuring out how to build the frame. So not only is the design beign informed from the eventual ride feedback, but the design is also influenced by the methods put into practice as I fabricate the ride as well. The ride is now fully realized when it is being influenced by all aspects of the design and fabrication process.

Stoked on these next two builds: 29er dirt road ramblers. Basically mountain bikes.. but setup to do primarily dirt roads. There's just so mach dirt around here that these make a lot of sense. That and i prefer dirt to pavement, so its that much better.

THIS JUST IN...

These should be here later this week..

JULY 4th 2008

A ride for the books..

THE BEAST

I have the very fortunate opportunity to build bikes once a week beside Ted Wojcik. This is the Cincinnati Horizontal milling machine that does all the maintube mitering. It is a beast of a machine. The story goes that Ted won it at auction for next to nothing many years ago. If it didn't sell, they were going to make it into a boat anchor.. The one thing wrong with it apparently was something to do with the feed for the table i believe. Ted opened her up to check inside and found the problem. Gave Cincinnati a call and identified the part that needed to be replaced, but the gentleman on the other side asked "now are you sure you want this?" "Yes, i do." replied Ted. Again "you're sure now.." Ted: "YES" The other end went silent for a bit "...because its about 1200 bucks." That about ended that conversation as being a fabricator and knowing how to braze, Ted dug back into the machine, found the other half of the part and brazed it back together. That was about 17 years ago and she's still making chips like no other. They don't make them like they used to..

TEST RIDE

TEST RIDES from BLACKCAPstudio on Vimeo.

The best part of building them means you get to ride them...
I ride solo most of the time, hence the odd angles.

DIRT ROADS AND ALIGNMENT

This ones on the alignment table and lookin' pretty good with minimal cold setting to be done.

In the process of making myself a new dirt road rambler. We've got a HUGE network of dirt roads in our neck of the woods, and being that I absolutely love to have dirt between me and the hoops i ride, this makes for a super fun backwoods road bike. No skinny tires here-we're talkin' 2.3 Exi-Wolves. In other words a 29er. But set up with drop bars and singlespeed aplenty. This ones going to be pretty nice with Paragon Sliders. Can't wait to finish her up and paint the town red..

MORE TIG WELDING ACTION...

44 TIG Welding Action from BLACKCAPstudio on Vimeo.

Chainstay / Bottom Bracket Weldment. Need to get the good camera to the shop...

TIG WELDING ACTION

44 TIG Welding Action from BLACKCAPstudio on Vimeo.

Chainstay Sub-Assembly Welding...

44 Stainless HT Badges

..ready to be formed.

BACK FROM PAINT

stripped down simplicity

44 KIDD DANGEROUS

SPY SHOT OF THE 44 KIDD DANGEROUS...