Filed In: Process
Father/Daughter Project - Part 2
November 19, 2019 | Chris Blandford
Before I dive in, a couple notes:
I took the UBI framebuilding course in the summer of 2015, and then again--because I’m a terrible student--in the spring of 2017. Tony Pereira (of Breadwinner) and Dan Harrison (now of Vanilla) were the instructors the first time around. Ron Sutphin and Rich Bernouli taught the second course. So hey, if I show something here that indicates bad habits, blame the four of them! Ha. (Anything of apparent quality, though, is completely my doing. Obviously.)
I currently build my bicycles in a small studio that sits above our home's detached garage. I also actual-work from that same space, and try to steal an hour or two each afternoon for the bicycle stuff. At the very least I’m down in my “shop” most evenings, after the dog has been fed and Mathilda is asleep. Sports talk radio during the day, music at night. Picture painted, I hope.
My space is mostly machine-less. I own a drill press, belt sander, and a cordless drill. That’s about it. For fixtures, I have an Anvil frame jig and an Anvil fork jig. A Sputnik braze-on kit. Some other little things. Various bending... devices. We’ll get to all of that stuff, I’m sure.
Finally, I have no supervised fabrication/metalworking experience (outside of my time at UBI), nor do I have any real bicycle experience. (I’ve certainly never worked in a bike shop. Or raced. Or even ridden with a group, actually.) A perfect recipe for bicycle-making success, yes? I’m just a lifelong commuter/get-arounder/tinkerer/self-maintenance-er. Feel free to judge accordingly. Given my experience and intentions, I’m quite unoffendable in this realm.
Anyway, that's the context. I thought it was important.
Phew. Now then...
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