Evolution

These seem like they should be such easy decisions but every one becomes monumental. The logo, for instance, has changed a little. You'll see it in the masthead of this blog. It went from a decomposing block letter to an overinked fountain pen derived script. It's not such a big deal really unless you're about to invest in 50 decal sets for your frames. I suppose in some ways that's interesting because, well, I guess I'm committing to 50 frames (assuming I can find 50 people to buy bikes...) But there's been a number of changes along the way and I'm sure there will be more. For instance, I have been a fan of the Salsa dropout on the frames I cut my teeth on but they no longer make a cromoly version opting for stainless steel instead which doesn't fit in with my inclination to build exclusively fillet brazed framesets. I did find a fairly nice stainless steel seat collar though and was quite excited to begin using these but when they arrived they were 0.6mm over their spec size and essentially became useless for what I wanted to use them for. So changes occur.

The nice thing about overordering "bits" whenever you make an order for fittings is you always have an option or two in the toolbox. So out went the new stainless collar and back came the externally attached binder. I've been using a lug that utilizes a Campagnolo type seat binder bolt, that two piece bolt where one half screws into the other half through a through hole in the seatpost collar. While that works they are prone to failure from time to time and that's not cool when you're in the middle of nowhere trying to find an increasingly rare piece. The other option was the common solution to this problem; a slip on collar. Cheap, common, but it seems a cheap way to finish a frame. The externally attached binder means a traditional M6 stainless bolt is used and the colar is a permanently attached feature of the frame. This makes sense in my mind and it worked well here.

Where I ended up makes me happy. I suspect it will change a bit between this frame and the next. For some reason while I was taking pictures along the way I didn't take a picture of how the seat cluster ended up finished. The frame is off at the painter's and when I get it back I'll get a photograph of it. For now there's these "in process" images. I don't know that any frame is ever truly finished. I'm very happy with how the last few frames have turned out. Happy enough that I've started building myself another one.