Rackufacture: Shopping Spree & Clamp Blocks

Mostly, I hang out here to goof off and have a good time.  But now I need to get a little responsible.  It's this whole rack obsession.  See, I've benefited from some other guys who have spent a bunch of time putting their stuff on the interwebs, thereby saving me a bunch of time and money and aggravation.  And now I'm thinking that in the off chance that someone might find what I'm doing useful at some point, I need to put it out there.  I've benefited from a lotta shit, but there are two guys in particular that have put stuff out there that I've soaked up like a sponge.  Those two guys are Alex Wetmore and Alistair Spence.  No way I could ever or do ever want to duplicate what they've done, but maybe I can fill in some blanks or somehow complement them.

You can go here for a ton of Alex's rack building stuff, you can go here for the same from Alistair.

So with that, let me just warn you that this is gonna be long and boring.  I've locked the door to the shop and headed inside for the night and I'd advise you to do what I should be doing, which is to go to bed.  But if you wanna stay up and keep me company, that's cool too.

Coupla weeks ago, John facilitated a meeting with Alex, who was super generous with his Saturday afternoon and helped me fast-track my education.  I lead-footed it back to Spo and spent the following Monday online.  All kinds of crazy shit started showing up on my doorstep later in the week.  Here it is, all scraped together on my workbench:



That's about $600 worth of stuff.  Insane, I know. But if you're thinking about giving this a try and you're on a budget, don't let this discourage you. The thing about rack building is that you can do it super-cheap if you want to. I just happened to go a little nuts.



I was already convinced and then Alex double-convinced me about dropping some serious coin on some didymium glasses. They filter out the orange flare when you're brazing and totally let you see what you're doing. Money well spent for old diminishing eyes like mine. Plus they make me look like a million bucks.  It's also true that chicks dig didymium, so I am told. The cheesy backup pair on the right is for when I drop and shatter the expensive ones and have to kiss the chicks goodbye and get back to work.



This is about $60 worth of braze-ons. Enough for quite a few bikes and then some. Thing is, if your bike doesn't have eyelets, you need something to tie your rack to and these will do the trick. They came from an e-tailer called Nova Cylces and they have an awesome website and even better service.



This is the actual tubing you build the racks from. Got it from a company called Aircraft Spruce (recommended by Alex, like most of the other tooling and material suppliers, thereby saving me gobs of time). You're looking at (8) each 4' lengths. The bill was $108, so something like $3.40/ft by the time it hits your door. Tubing is definitely the pricey part of building racks.



Here are some maple and elm blocks I picked up at Woodcraft for making tube clamps out of. More on this later.



Flux and a coupla pounds of brazing rod from Henry James. A lifetime supply of flux brushes from Harbor Freight that set me back $1.99.



Two Ridgid workhorse tubing benders from Toolup.com - I'm geared up for 5/16" and 3/8" tubing. These two sizes cover a boat-load of what you need to get started and then you can go from there, if you need to.

So I had ambitious plans for tonight - this and that and then I was gonna do my first brazing. But as usual, my optimism had run away with myself. But I did get some maple tube clamps together.

I started off by cutting four pieces of 1-1/4 x 1-1/4 maple and marking the centers. Two of these are gonna be sacrificial.

I hadn't checked my drill press for square for a while so I checked my drill press for square for a while. Whadya know, pretty square.

I started to drill pilot holes in the blocks. Holy krap! At the last minute, I realized the grain was going the wrong direction. Alex and I had just talked about this and still, I almost spaced it.

The pilot hole's going in the right direction now.

Big hole happening.

I split the blocks with my table saw and the kerf is so wide that I had to offset the centerline and scrap one half in order to get the other side to come out. So out of four blocks, I came out with two good ones. Hard to tell from the pic, but one's a 3/8 and the other a 5/16.

I sprayed 'em down for convenient ID.



I'm saving the scrap halves for when I bust the good ones or catch them on fire. The scraps will work in a pinch.

Sorry about the weird formatting of this post. I just switched over to the new blogger post editor and I'm a long way from getting it figured out.

Rip Roarin' Ready to Re-connect, Ride and Rackufacture

Sorry that I've bailed on you guys lately. I've been screaming busy. I can only imagine how much you've missed me. I've missed you more.

'Kay, then. That should take care of the re-connect stuff. Stopped myself just short of the L-word.

So then. On to riding . . .
Last year at this time, I put together the Karate Monkey. It was designed to be my winter buddy. It did pretty good, but fell short in a coupla areas. First off, it's not go-far enough. Secondly, it can't carry shit. Here it is in pretty much its original incarnation:



See how high the load rides? That'll wag your tail like mad. Don't get me wrong - I'm not down on it. It's just that good bikes aren't born overnight. They take time to evolve. And it's time for this bike to get a little less novel and a bit more practical.

So I've been busy swapping out the bars, which has meant also swapping shifters and levers and throwing gobs of my time (which is apparently worth nothing) into this money pit. Here's the new, improved cockpit:



Awesome photography, I know.

And then there's my obesession with building racks. I'm gearing up like there's no tomorrow, taking the concept of e-commerce to the next level. Tools and supplies are rolling in in waves. UPS is contemplating a branch office on the corner.

But anyway, I'm just about ready to get started.

And as if that wasn't enough, Patty thinks she should be allowed to park her car in the new garage this winter. That is absurd!

Easy to be all brave on the internet, but I happen to like being married, so I cleared things out. An even worse pic, but I think it is plain to see that the car is in the garage.



I'm thinking that I'm in a pretty sweet position to bargain for my next bike.

News Briefs

MARKSALOT HAS LEFT THE HOUSE

It's been a little quieter around here lately. I guess my last beat-down was too much. Probably off harassing politicians who don't have the time to respond. Marksy always feigned respect and civility by starting each letter with "Dear".

It worked, to some extent, and I miss Marksy, in a sick sort of way.

MORNING SICKNESS?

Speaking of nausea, Earlier today I thought I was preggers with John's baby.



Turns out I was just hung over and he's the one giving birth. Probably right at this moment, in a cold, depressing, poorly-lit garage.

MY APPRENTICESHIP

Speaking of John, he put me in touch with Alex. I want to start building bike racks (not the kind you lock your bike to), and Alex is really good at it and incredibly generous with his time and talents and materials and offered to give me a crash course. In my haste to accept his offer via email, I was typing so fast that I melted the space bar on my keyboard. I'mnotsurehowmyreplylooked,buthestillopenedthedoortohishouseandletmein.Itwasawesome.

You don't get invited to someone's house that you've never met before and who's doing you a humungous favor and then start snapping a bunch of pics. Seriously bad etiquette. But I can show you what he lined my pockets with on the way out the door:



Probably doesn't mean much to you at this five minutes, but I swear you'll go all crazy when you recognize them in a future post.

COLDER THAN BALLS

Speaking of getting in your car in Seattle and getting out five hours later in Spokane, I have no idea what the term "colder than balls" actually means, but it accurately describes how we felt when we opened the car doors. I heard this garbage weather came down from Canada, so I'm blaming our neighbors to the north.

I'M SO HOSED

Speaking of frozen balls, I don't know how you guys keep your bikes clean in the winter, but I keep a short hose draped over the railing of my deck and sometimes, when the grime gets too deep, I hook my frozen hose to my frozen faucet and clean my frozen bike while I freeze my ever-livin' ass off. It depresses me to even think about it. But I'm ready.



PUMPKIN-SICKLES

Speaking of pumpkins, ours stayed out overnight last night while we were in Seattle. I hear it got kinda cold. When I got home tonight, I cut them off the vines and put them inside, 'cause I hear it's gonna get kinda cold. But I have no idea if I'm too late and they're toast. Different people at a birthday celebration last night who had been drinking gave me a vast array of opinions, so my confidence is in the toilet. If you know anything, I would be obliged.



So there you go. Not even two weeks ago, I wrote the most boring post of my life. And now all this fantastic krap is going down. So there you go.

Don't Touch Your Privates

Marksalot's been dogging me and then also, I'm in the middle of this frame geometry nightmare which is beyond human comprehension and then also, out of nowhere, I find out that we're going into the deep freeze this weekend and that I need to drain the hoses and scrape all the produce off the vines like IMMEDIATELY. You can sense the kind of pressure I am under.

A big part of our produce patch is hot peppers and all of a sudden I need to get them cut up and de-seeded and into the dehydrator pronto. A few beers go a long way towards passing the prep time and at the same time, alleviating the stress of an unwelcome, anonymous, hostile reader.



So there you have it, the makings of a perfect storm. Stress to pre-occupy your mind, beer to fill your bladder and napalm on your fingers. One trip to the bathrom without thinking about what you're doing and 5 seconds later you're pouring milk down your pants.

So I've heard.

I've devoted an entire post to warning you about something really bad. You can heed my advice or not. But if you burn your weiner off, don't come crying to me.

The support group does, however, welcome new members.

So I've heard.

No Sleep For The Geek

Whoa. Despite my best efforts at dissuasion, you're back for more. Your life must be even sadder than I thought. But that's okay - I'm pretty pathetic myself. Maybe you and I fill gaps (I think I heard about that in a movie once or something). But anyway, since you're already here, you might as well listen to my boring story.

I have a numb right hand that's been getting a little but not a whole lot better, which has led me to the conclusion that I need to change bars to prevent permanent nerve damage which has in turn led me to try and figure out how to set them up which has led me to finally throw myself onto the frame geometry fire. I had intended to put this off forever.

Long story short, I'm gonna bolt these on:



They're called dirt drops or flared drops and while I've seen em, I never really knew about or understood em. John steered me to Matt Chester, the on-line dirt drop godfather, who set me straight. You know how to use google, if you want the dirt on dirt drops. Check this out if you want a more brief, non-techy synopsis.

I researched the different dirt drops available and settled on the On One Midge. I could write about that whole deal, but I never will, so trust me - this is where to start. You can't buy them new, so get your rear end over to eBay and pick up a set before they are collectors items. I paid $45 + shipping for mine.

I think that maybe measuring angles and dangles is a lot like how I've always felt about going to college . . . it doesn't make you smarter, it just trains you to ask smarter questions. Of which I now have a billion (funny how that word doesn't phase us anymore).

Yup, that's me trying to measure a bike frame with something a roofer would use. I have some better tools, somewhere, but I'll be damned if I can find em. This'll hafta do:



This scribbly mess is all I have to show for a coupla hours in the garage:



It's always darkest just before the dawn or some krap like that, so I hear.

It's Been Nice Knowing You Guys

Contrary to the impression you might have at this point, bikes are not my life, just my escape from reality. My happy place.

And like the PRO chef who comes home and cooks nothing but Swanson TV dinners or the PRO accountant who's always behind on his taxes, it has been my sincere desire to leave my PRO nerdy self at work and keep my bike life fun. I don't wanna know how the difference between a 172.5 and 175 mm crank affects my experience, I just wanna feel the bugs hitting my face. You know, 'ride, Sally, ride'.

(Just so you know, it's okay for me to call me Sally, but not so much for you. I have a potato gun, don't make me use it.)

Unfortunately you can only fight the unrelenting power of the swirling eddy currents for so long before they suck your exhausted body underwater.

Yup, I'm measuring angles and dangles and wielding levels and protractors and krap after work, after dark, in my cold-ass garage. Normal guys are watching monday night football in the comfort of their recliners. Why can't I be normal, just for once.



I bought a metric tape measure to save time on conversions. What has become of me?



But more importantly, what has become of us?

Well, if strikes me that if you are all about being bored out of your skull, you won't need to change a thing . . . just keep stopping by. But I know that not many of you fit that description. So I suspect that you may find better places to spend your web-time.

But before you go, can I just ask you one question: Do you have, or have you ever had, trouble sleeping at night? Might I suggest 26InchSlicks?

(Hmm, wonder if my own blog will work on my own myself . . .)

Public Service Announcement

I'm still buried in setting up the shop, including drawing lines on the wall where the studs are, among other things.



I found out and wanted to let you know that this so-called "permanent marker" totally sucks. "From The Makers Of Sharpie." Really??? No, not. Really. Sharpies rule. This POS definitely does not. I accidentally discovered that Windex dissolves the super-permanent ink.



I would recommend that you stick with the gold standard, but do whatever you want.



That's all I've got.

******************************

I know you tuned in for something bikey. I'm as mortified as you are disappointed. Times are tough. We'll come out of this dry spell together, at some point. Hang with me, please.

In the meantime, savor the marker knowledge. At some point, you're gonna be at Rite-Aid looking for something to write your name on glass or something and you're gonna remember this and be so very grateful. Or you're gonna forget and be so very pissed.