hi I'm Paul Brodie this is my shop mitch is behind the camera as usual and I'd like to welcome you
we have a project we're gonna build some Forks old-style unicrone although these are much more
modern blades when I was building Forks this would have been well a unicrone [ __ ] that
would have been 8687 i was using Tanguay and the blades were bent at a 90 they came right
over and they were mitered and they were mitered in line with the steer tube so this is a little
different situation obviously in cycling things have changed a lot and you can't just miter up
a set of unicron blades anymore 426 when you've got so many wheel sizes so I guess that's why they
leave them long so we've got a couple things we have to do we have to make a fixture I've
already made it actually that's this one here and what it's gonna do is to allow me to make
a slot where the drop out goes in so the drop out nothing fancy it's 3/16 so I need to use a
slotting saw to make the slot so so that's what this fixture is for it holds the blade and if
you if you look at it there's a stop here or a hold it here and then the blade it can pop out
and these here when as the blade comes in it it butts up against this stop and this slop so
when you put the fork in it's always in the same spot and it goes against against the plate and
so the vise is gonna hold this this piece here is basically the same height so that when the
vise close is if you're gonna be holding it on one end it puts the jaws at an angle that's not
so good so this this piece here all it does is to hold the vise jaws parallel let's go to the milk
you're gonna stop this is all the way down so that's the position so I've got a little hole
so what I want to do now is to is to rotate the fixture so it's lying on its back and then I can
take the whole saw and I can make a little cut right there and a cut right there and
that's going to be where the Phillip brazing goes so that it's a nice flow into the dropout
yeah exactly why I don't take out the fixture now the fixture stays in there I just changed blades
it's like being back in production all those years ago besides have some show bikes it's
been a long time since I've made Forks so it feels good to be doing this again
so there's my drawing it's just made on a piece of bristol board nothing fancy I'm not
doing CAD or anything full-sized it's pencil if I make a mistake I've got an eraser you
can see where I'm yeah you can see here how it moved lines around so what we're looking
at now is this is the is a drop out like so and this is the bottom that's the bottom of
the fork leg and the slot is 3/8 of an inch up so I'm going to take a ruler I'm going to
measure up 3/8 of an inch so that's where I have to narrow it down I can just use a
file so I need to file a little bit off on each side there so that it goes you can see
how it doesn't go in let's go do some filing so I can see my line there there's my line
like that it's not falling out so that's good so it's going
up to the file box on both sides and this one here
but it's the same on both sides and they'll just get filled that would breathe at first
I use a nickel silver rod and then I use the big brazing rod Wow three thirty-seconds those
are my two rods nickel silver 16th of an inch and the brazing rod this one's been recycled
can you tell so the dropouts going to take a little bit more heat because it's got some
mass and the nickel silver rod is a stronger rod than the brazing rod but it's harder to
fill it brave so you use a nickel silver rod at first and it gets right in there it flows
very nicely so I'm just putting the getting nickel silver around the ends this okay so
I've got you can see how I'll put a little tack on the ends of each one what I'm gonna do now
is I'm gonna move it and I'm gonna just flow that nickel silver down into the slot there
okay you switch rods so I'm changing the angle now because I want this to be more or less
horizontal because I'm gonna fill see that gap there obviously a gap I'm gonna fill in the gap
okay so I've gone across the front and now I fill so you're gonna get the rod right in
there if you sloppy with your rod control it's hard to do there we go so it's filled
up and as it cools it probably sinks a little bit not so much this time then you're gonna
add just a little bit more than there yep see it sink right there did you see it sink as it
cool so I add just a little bit more there so doing that with a little spot okay and then I
also know from experience that I need to put a little blob right in there because when I file
it up I want this line to go into the radius and if I don't put a blob there there can be
a little low spot there so get out of add a blob intentionally right at the corner
yeah that's my blog
so I'm putting this on my drawing and I'm lining up the outline of the blade and then I'm gonna
make a mark right down the center line that's my hacksaw cut I just use the bandsaw I have a die
grinder I'm gonna use this to make a radius here now this spins clockwise so it wants to
move that way so I need to hold it against that part or the shoulder you could call it
and I don't want to go on to the drop out face and make mark so let's see how careful I can be
okay so I'm I'm happy with that right there can you see a tiny little pinhole but every
frame bill that needs a good painter and I'm I'm counting on the the painter to just fill that up
so that's good so I'll get the belt sander now and we'll do the bottom and the top
can you see how that edge has stayed sharp it's not rounded and the line of the of the of the
drop out there's I'm calling this the line of the drop out it comes around and it blends right into
the radius of the fault blade that's what you want that's the old style of Philip braising
it's where often the paint goes on you can't tell where the drop out ends and the fault
blade stops that's the beauty of it I've got my Emery cloth 80 grit inch wide I'll put on
a little bit of a crosshatch so I'll get rid of the heat stains there we go that's
there's the difference you can see the difference so what's what's next in this in this process is
that I need to make a mitre I need to make put an inch hole saw through these these two
blades so we need a fixture so this is an old seat stay fixture that I have this pot
here holds the axle it used to hold a rear axle I need to make a new axle up here and
I need to lower this down I need to take a cup off here probably I'm just guessing probably
about today so it's all gonna be lower so I'll grab some half-inch have some machine down for
the dropout size make these from edge to edge 100 millimeters maybe a couple millimeters more
it wants to spin in the Chuck the Chuck's not holding it so I got my 5/16 ready rod
I've got a couple of nuts so there's my thread that's the end of this work time
so now we're locking one nut against the other and then we wind it until it's tight
and then we break it loose so you want the spreads to be 1/2 inch so we're gonna mark
100 millimeters maybe add a couple and always make it shorter so that's to that
and then this is almost 5 so if we add 5 millimeters on there that's my hacksaw
so this might fit there we go so I'll take all this apart now and then we've gotta use the
hacksaw and then we we machine it to the right min and then after that we install a new axle
look at that
okay I'm happy with that and then this goes back on okay so now we can see
what's what's going on here all right you can see better so the folks are gonna go like so
why don't we go to the lathe now and we're gonna I'll show you how this gets set up so
I'm gonna undo the tool holder it's a 3/8 bolt so I've loosened it see how the whole
tool holder just comes off so the piece that I made it replaces that but it's it's like a
t-shape upside down t shape so that goes into here like that so that whole piece of fixture
has to go along here in in line in the center and you see there's a bump there you can't have
that have that bumped in so that's why I need to move this is called the compound I'm gonna
move it and I figured out the angle I want it's it's 25 degrees so I drilled these holes at an
angle of 25 degrees 25 degrees and what that does it gets that hump out of the way so we
lock that I've never done anything like this before so it's new for me here's the fixture
see these lines those two lines I think that's where the hacksaw is going to go I think we're
going to lose this whole front section make some space here then you can get an idea of what I'm
that's not going to work because these are these allen screws are hitting I have to
use countersunk allen screws so I have to take those out and find some other screws
those are going to hit but we'll start off by using the hacksaw and changing the bolts
so sometimes making a jig or fixture is a little bit of trial and error you can think
you know what's going to work but then once you actually start that's when reality kicks
in so if that goes right in the middle of those two lines that should be closed okay so I have
these two little blocks I just happen to have them so if I put these on either side of the
hole saw I know the hole sore is sometimes not perfect but you can see how there's a gap here
and this one over hangs this is probably a better way of doing it like that I'm just learning here
and what we'll do is we're gonna spin the Chuck over to see if it's so good because
the hole source so that's good there that's I like that because I feel like I've got these
blades right in the middle here so I should not eyeball with that that would that's not
smart because that's just a hack so lock I made some wooden wedges I'm just gonna knock
him in here it slightly and hopefully that stops the vibration if there is vibration
all right we're gonna give it a shot this is it and we hope everything goes well okay here we go
okay so this one's made alright if I get a clamp on I can I can put a seat clamp right
let's just see what it looks like on the fork jig now this is only
a mitering fixture this is not what holds the steel tube in the fork blade so let's
go over there and have a quick peek so here is the fault jig and I made I made
this a long time ago back in the 80s but it's still good I've got a steer tube here
so these a little fine-tuning bit that's what it's going to look like there you
go to put some masking tape around there I'll hold them in so that's our segment
for today next week we're gonna make a fork we're gonna make a crown race and do all
the brazing the filing and all that thank you for watching have a great week Stacy