you gotta have some. My friend Tamar turned me onto a bar…. and I guess the thing is, its so easy not to do it this way. To make what you do genuine to you….

Carved and thinned the lugs for a Vanilla Rando bike today, then prepped them for brazing.

Once the lugs are carved, but before they’re thinned, we’ll  grind out the inside of the lugs so that they have a slip fit around the tube. Any spot on the lug that is tighter than a slip fit will keep the silver from penetrating resulting in a weaker joint. We also cold set the lugs at this time to match the frame angles. This is a process of bending with a bar inside of the tug, tapping the outside with a hammer and a broad dull aluminum punch and grinding down high spots inside of the lug. Once that’s done and everything fit’s up nicely in the jig, I’ll file all of the lug surfaces to give the shorelines a uniform thickness.

The photos below show the lugs being thinned. I’m thinking about tri-podding my camera and trying to make a short video, rather than just the static shots. Anyhoo, here they are.

xoxo,

Sacha

p.s. click on the first image and then scroll through by hitting your right arrow key…

So good to have a good flow back in the shop. The raw frame from friday is a rugged road bike for a great customer and pal Max in Northern California. Pics below are of that frame with primer on it and all masked off for paint. Raw shots are of Speedvagen cross bikes. Scott, Mike and I are tag teaming braze-ones, Seatstay brazing  etc. The goal is for me to keep the torch lit all day and for them to keep feeding me frames with braze-ons, bridges, stainless noodles through the ISP, etc. prepped with flux and ready for fire and silver. It’s efficient to work as a team like that and reenforces why I like the Speedvagen process so much.

Sacha

Leave me a message here and I’ll send you my email (i’m just avoiding spam) and then send me a Hipstamatic print from your iphone of your Speedvagen… and I’ll put my favorite ones up. Ok?

All this while I sit quietly and wait for a big rainy mtn stage in the tour with the hopes that Menchov goes apesh*t and steals the whole cookie out from under everyone. A man can dream.

Fingerbang and out.

and nutrition. A true Rouleur combines his seafood with his carbo-drink. Hats off to Kevin and his rad stylings. I salute you.

it looks perfect… and I know from my buddy Harm that everybody there rides beautifully.

Thanks for sending the pics B… I think it looks hot. Happiness is seeing that someone can bend over.