Custom Bicycle Build - Part 12

With the conclusion of the framebuilding school all that remains is….. building the rest of the bike. Simple, right? After the conclusion of the two-week course, Koichi joked that I still had a lot of “homework” to take care of. All of my amateur welds need to be filed smooth, and the frame needs to be sanded and polished to make ready for the final paint coating.

So the finishing process for the frame goes as follows: Filing all welds smooth, first with coarse 8” files, then with fine swiss-pattern files. Then sanding all tubes, lugs, dropouts, and welds with 120-grit emery cloth. The sanding is followed by scotchbrite polishing pads - in coarse and fine grades. Finally, the surface is burnished with a steel-wire brush rotated by a power drill.

This was a super time-consuming process. Fortunately I had a nice space to work in thanks to my Dad! The maintenance shop at the quarry where he works was opened to me, and it was a great place to work. Below are a few photos from the finishing process.

They usually work on heavier projects in this shop. Dad’s CAT 972 masses about 24,800 kg.

The frame set up for finishing work. Total mass less than 2 kilos!

Filing the welds on the rear brake bridge. The left-hand side has been filed smooth and tangent. The right-hand side still needs work…

Burnished frame ready for component assembly!