Vintage tracker Frankenbike tribute build

[27motorhead]

That’s one pretty fence!

 

[Frankenorange]

This is a great thread. What i like about this forum is the pics of welding/cutting/bending/hammering aren't followed by loads of the usual cr@p you see posted on other forums like...

I hope you have a good dentist

Post a pic of your injuries

Why not just buy a bike with wider tyres?

....and so on.

 

[Nabeaquam]

This is a great thread. What i like about this forum is the pics of welding/cutting/bending/hammering aren't followed by loads of the usual cr@p you see posted on other forums like...

I hope you have a good dentist

Post a pic of your injuries

Why not just buy a bike with wider tyres?

....and so on.

I’m going to ruin your enjoyment. Since I had my finger fusion I’m dropping everything. I dropped the grinder, it nipped my finger. Most of the grinding is done so hopefully this won’t happen again. These 10,000 hand held grinders can gut you. I heal slowly now a days. My cell division is slowing down. Nuts.

 

[Nabeaquam]

Ah dah no folks about dat yooper forge brazing idea for dis frame. I’ve done it before, but the joints were clean. You need a constant air blast from a propane torch to do this in your grill. You also need to plunge weld a short steel threaded plug in there, holding it straight in angle iron while you do that. This keeps it straight while brazing. A tack doesn’t work as the welded tack gets soft from heat and your joint moves. It makes a smooth strong brazed join that needs almost no finishing. This was to make long enough side braces for another Breezer 1 clone I was working on. These small diameter tubes were way, way more expensive than what I would pay so I hacked off 6 stays from frames in my frame fence and made the lateral braces for cheap. Everyone likes cheap.

This frame has tack welding slag deep in the joints. I used my homemade spot blaster to try and get the deep slag out but it didn’t get all the way in there. Perhaps it’s my medium of beach sand. It’s probably too course. I’m not investing in real medium, that may not work anyway. The spot blaster works great for removing frame paint in places where my 10,000 rpm wire brush cup can’t get into, so why bother changing anything for a one time experiment. I may still try the forge brazing but I’m not expecting it to work.

 

[Frankenorange]

I’m going to ruin your enjoyment. Since I had my finger fusion I’m dropping everything. I dropped the grinder, it nipped my finger. Most of the grinding is done so hopefully this won’t happen again. These 10,000 hand held grinders can gut you. I heal slowly now a days. My cell division is slowing down. Nuts.View attachment 791509

When i was a teen i was out training on my roadbike when i found out just how abrasive fast moving 700C tyres can be. I was changing gear with the downtube shifter when i went through a big hole in the road.
My hand slid off and fingers went into the spokes and in a flash my index finger was wedged between the bottom of the fork crown and the tyre.
It was all a bit sudden and reactions blunted so quite a bit of slowing down was done with the finger acting as a brake. Once i had stopped i then had to roll the bike back to get my finger out of its jam. I think you can imagine what it was like from the nail to the middle of the finger. The latter part was the worst affected and is still scarred some 40 odd years later.

I rode home and then fainted on the sofa with mum barely keeping her lunch down. Dad came home from work and took me to hospital. It took a very long time to mend and was a b@stard to live with during that time.

 

[Nabeaquam]

When i was a teen i was out training on my roadbike when i found out just how abrasive fast moving 700C tyres can be. I was changing gear with the downtube shifter when i went through a big hole in the road.
My hand slid off and fingers went into the spokes and in a flash my index finger was wedged between the bottom of the fork crown and the tyre.
It was all a bit sudden and reactions blunted so quite a bit of slowing down was done with the finger acting as a brake. Once i had stopped i then had to roll the bike back to get my finger out of its jam. I think you can imagine what it was like from the nail to the middle of the finger. The latter part was the worst affected and is still scarred some 40 odd years later.

I rode home and then fainted on the sofa with mum barely keeping her lunch down. Dad came home from work and took me to hospital. It took a very long time to mend and was a b@stard to live with during that time.

That’s gotta be worse than I can imagine. I bet it will bother you more and more as you age.

 

[Nabeaquam]

Cold today, -4C, ice and frost. My springer, is being de rusted in a phosphoric acid bath, but it froze.
I decided to attempt the forge brazing as it isn’t going to get any warmer. I built a big fire and put coal on it.

Problems, my leaf blower was shot, would’t blow, so I used my shop vacuum head. That didn‘t put out enough air. I think it would work a lot better with a good blower.
It sorta worked, but it took a long time, like a half hour for the brazing to melt and another 10 minutes for it to flow. It was bright cherry red but not quite as hot as it needed to be. Probably work better in the hot summer with a good blower. I don’t know what I’m doing, telling you something you didn’t know.
Looks bad but probably works. Good enough perfect. Very likely a failure.

 

[Dr Dremel]

Brazing in a fire, forks frozen in an acid bath, what´s next? Shooting deer for a new saddle skin?
Threads like this are really the spice of retrobike, thanks for sharing!

 

[27motorhead]

Hope the shop vac didn’t get melted! Don’t want that busted along with your leaf blower!

 

[MattiThundrrr]

That didn‘t put out enough air. I think it would work a lot better with a good blower.

Can you attach the hose to the exhaust end? Maybe you could get more heat if you could direct the airflow at the hotspot better.