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Can you ever have too many clamps?

DROP OUTS (continued) The top ears of the dropouts needed a little angle adjustment to match the angle of the top tubes. I used some clamps and square tubing to improvise a metal brake. These need some additional finessing to close the gaps between the dropout and tubing and, the tubes...

DROP OUTS In addition to adjusting the initial dropout design to meet the top tubes I had to determine exactly how I wanted to hang the twin rear brake calipers. I'm planning on a rear rack so mounting one caliper at the top wasn't a real option. Plus, at the top I felt that it disrupted the...

TOP TUBES Working a little backwards on this build. Usually I have a pretty strong idea of how I want to design the rear dropouts. I'll typically start with the bottom bracket-chain stay-dropout assembly and build any seat stays or cantilevers off of that. This time I'm starting with the head...

Thanks @Uncle Stretch, quite a compliment. It is my favorite to date. I really like the way this one rides too. It didn't sit still very much last summer. Probably won't this coming summer either!

It is, and about as solid as you could ever hope for.

WHEEL AND FENDER TEMPLATE I'm having a little trouble visualizing exactly how to run the top, mid, and chain stay tubes around the rear fender, wheel, and brake disc. I printed out full size cross sections and mounted them to cardboard to use as reference. I'm hoping this will help me keep the...

TOOL SPLURGE A little detour from build pics... I've been eyeing this fixture (from chopsource.com) for a while and couldn't resist it's pull any longer. Complete overkill for the volume of building that I do but I couldn't be more excited. It's absolutely beautiful and I may actually be able to...

BENDING THE TWIN TOP AND MID TUBES To get matching bends I first welded the tubes up in pairs. The tubes were then filled with sand and caped before going through the tubing roller. I also bent sections that will be sleeved on to the end of these tubes to get them around the rear wheel and...

BENDING SOME METAL I've done this a few times in the past and have had good luck with it. I drew a profile line drawing of the design in Illustrator and then printed it out full size. I shift the drawing while printing so that I end up with an 8-1/2" x 11" mosaic that I tape together. The...

Smoker... already been chopping wood ;)

Awesome, thanks.

Awesome resource, thanks. I've found that as I start new builds I'm checking back in on previous builds more and more. I'll definitely get use in the future out of the links you and @Wildcat have posted. This is going to have some heft to it. Luckily the "hills" in Southeast Michigan are pretty...

FRAME To start I have some straight tubing in addition to the 100mm bottom bracket and a length of raw head tube stock. Now the fun begins!

FENDER The design really needs fenders. The best and most cost effective option I could find were inexpensive motorcycle fenders. Sections of two fenders will be required to get the wrap that I want. These are heavy and need considerable smoothing. A lot of material will be removed and I've got...

BRAKES I wanted to contrast the lace patterns between the front and rear wheels. A 3-cross in back, radial up front. My understanding is that a radial lace pattern doesn't offer much torque strength. Because of that concern I decided on a large 203mm disc and twin Avid BB7 calipers mounted to...

INDEX THUMB SHIFTER AND DERAILLEUR SRAM GX shifter and the short cage derailleur mentioned. Defaulting again to the Shortbow build. Hoping that I might be able to fit the shifter into a tank and create custom paddle type shifters mounted to the bars. But, I'm getting way ahead of myself. That...

CRANK & CASSETTE Crank and 42T front sprocket are from a Shimano Arabesque 600 set that I picked up at a swap meet a couple years ago. The rear cassette is a Shimano CS-M771 XT 10sp, 11-32T (11-12-14-16-18-20-22-25-28-32). I chose the rear cassette tooth range based on the gearing of a previous...

BOTTOM BRACKET & SPINDLE Here's an image of the hubs with the bottom bracket assembly. Bottom bracket is a 100mm wide shell, spindle is 164mm wide to help get around that 4" rear tire.

HUBS, TIRES & RIMS Hot rod rub(ber) big and littles. Out back is a Vee Tire 26x4.0 Zig-Zag mounted to a Classic Cycle (36) hole 82mm wide polished aluminum rim. Polished but, rim will need more sanding and buffing. After all purty and shiny it will be laced 3-cross with 13g black spokes to an...