Lyrebird Cycles

[Mark Kelly]

Looking good Mark, but YOU are the selling point for a frame, not the tech or the process. It needs a LOT more about you - your approach, your ideas, your background, your personality. Some photos of your toiling over the filament winder you built, sipping a glass of vino etc etc

I take your point but that was deliberate: I made it very clear to the talented fellow who designed the site that I didn't want it to be about me.

[kdawg]

The site does look good - is it just me though but on the "The Craft" page all the images are the same? - the descriptions sound like they should be showing different parts of the process but they're all the same side profile of the front of a bike?

[Mark Kelly]

Yes, it is unfinished.

I need to re-edit the text, sort the pics and get the merchandise section organised.

The first two just need time, the last needs the labels for the products to be finalised and I'm still testing the chain treatment and wax combination.

[Mark Kelly]

Some photos of your toiling over the filament winder you built, sipping a glass of vino etc etc

Ah, you've touched a nerve there. There are precisely zero pics of me holding a glass of wine.

Every time a photographer asks I tell them I spend much more time holding a scrubbing brush so how about we take a pic of that? Doesn't get a lot of takers.

[Colinmclelland]

Ah, you've touched a nerve there. There are precisely zero pics of me holding a glass of wine.

Every time a photographer asks I tell them I spend much more time holding a scrubbing brush so how about we take a pic of that? Doesn't get a lot of takers.

How about pointing to this goldmine of a thread!

[Mark Kelly]

Almost every cock-up I've made on a frame has involved the chainstay alignment somehow, so I've changed the build process in an attempt to make this less likely.

Part one of this process was making a small aluminium machinist's clamp from two short aluminium bars and two M6 studs. I could have used wingnuts to tighten this but I had fun making the brass lollipops:

Chainstay Clamp

The stud placement was calculated so when the clamp is positioned where it is it ensures the chainstays are parallel and at the selected tyre clearance, for this clamp it is 32mm (+10mm, so 42mm gap).

Part two involves building the bike in a different order: like everybody else I defaulted to building the front triangle then adding the rear but this isn't working for my processes. I am now building out from the bottom bracket, so chainstays first, then down tube and head tube get added to form the spine of the bike, then the superstructure.

Chainstay Bonding.

Loving the 3M dual plunger (DP) system: it's been virtually unobtainable here as the local distributor has never heard of the idea of customer service, they will only sell a full box most of which would be out of use by date before I got to use it.

The clamp also makes it very simple to put the bondline under pressure as per the 3M datasheet whilst keeping everything where it should be: a simple plate behind the clamp and a carpenter's F clamp onto the BB shell is all that is needed. This is the part that was very difficult previously: with the other tubes in place the clamping tended to pull the chainstays out of alignment.

The piece of green plastic is a go / no go gauge for the gap from the chainstay to the edge of the BB.

[Mark Kelly]

So the idea of building from the spine out is working as planned.

Spine

The spine built up in perfect alignment, helped by a new method of cutting mitres which I will explain when I've done a few more.



Octomitre

The absurdly complex eight faceted mitre for the bottom of the seat tube.


Octomitre_placed

fits.

[Mark Kelly]

Simple but effective method of making cut templates for the tube laterals using overlain strips of masking tape:


Templates

These laterals are in lightly fiddlebacked myrtle beech and it occurred to me that the leaf is bookmatched so I could make matching pairs for each tube:


Bookmatch

Retrospectively obvious, though it wouldn't have made much difference with laterals of rose gum or similar as it's too straght grained.

Note that the strips are cut to avoid using a couple of knots and shakes which might create weak spots. Similarly I cannot use deeply fiddlebacked leaf, if the figure is too deep I can't get the leaf to lay flat without removing too much material. These leaves came up nicely sanded to 0.05mm depth (yes, I measure it every time):


Bookmatch_Sanded.

And they look pretty good in situ:


Laterals.

[Colinmclelland]

These laterals are in lightly fiddlebacked myrtle beech and it occurred to me that the leaf is bookmatched so I could make matching pairs for each tube:

Let’s pretend I don’t know WTF “lightly fiddle backed ” means

[Mark Kelly]

Fiddle Back

The maple used in traditional violin making has a repetitive banding pattern due to compressive distortion of the wood fibres during tree growth. The association is now so strong that the figure is called fiddle back or fiddleback, even when it occurs on other woods.

Example above by a certain Signor Stradivari who worked in Cremona a while back and made violins that people seem to really like.

[Colinmclelland]

Fiddle Back

The maple used in traditional violin making has a repetitive banding pattern due to compressive distortion of the wood fibres during tree growth. The association is now so strong that the figure is called fiddle back or fiddleback, even when it occurs on other woods.

Example above by a certain Signor Stradivari who worked in Cremona a while back and made violins that people seem to really like.

Thanks Mark

[Mark Kelly]

Lyrebird Anvil

I made myself an anvil from apiece of old railway line; works a treat.


Headbadge_start

Much better result more easily obtained.


Headbadge_K2S

Silver treated with K₂S then the highlights polished back to bare silver.

I had a request to try to do the headbadge in gold so I bought some Aura 22k gold paste, $170 for one gram which should do 3-5 headbadges.


Headbadge_Aura22k

Here is the paste coated on the bare silver and allowed to dry. I decided to do the body and display feathers in gold and leave the fine feathers silver.


Headbadge_Heat

The paste needs to be heat treated to bond to the silver, a jeweller's oven is recommended. I don't have one of those but I do have a lab with a bunsen burner. One hour at a soft red heat should be enough.


Headbadge_Fail

Or not as the case may be.

Headbadges will be silver for the forseeable future.

[Colinmclelland]

Headbadge_Fail

Or not as the case may be.

Headbadges will be silver for the forseeable future.

I can't be the only person quietly re-assured that you do have the occasional snafu!

Also, who just happens to have a bunsen burner? Were you a science teacher in a previous life?

[Mark Kelly]

Also, who just happens to have a bunsen burner?

The bunsen burner is in the winery lab. The apparatus behind it performs Rankine's aspiration method for measuring SO₂ in wine: aspiration of unheated wine gives you the free SO₂ content, heating it whilst aspirating gives the bound, hence the bunsen burner.

The stuff up turns out to be because I used sterling silver for the headbadges; it gives a better reaction with K₂S but for the same reason it won't bind to gold. I will buy some more "4 9s" silver (99.99% purity) and try again.

[Colinmclelland]

The stuff up turns out to be because I used sterling silver for the headbadges; it gives a better reaction with K₂S but for the same reason it won't bind to gold. I will buy some more "4 9s" silver (99.99% purity) and try again.

What's sterling silver then?

FWIW, I like the idea of the full bird and feathers in gold and the background in silver!

[Mark Kelly]

Sterling has 7.5% copper which makes it much stronger than four nines but more reactive.

I decided to try to exploit this by inducing oxidation (oxygen and sulphur being in the same chemical family, group 6A in the standard periodic table).


headbadge_2

It actually looks quite good in the flesh, the bird is quite gold and the background subtly opalescent.

Even good photographers struggle with highly reflective objects and I am anything but a good photographer.

[Mark Kelly]

Sanding

Ready for tung oil finish: note pile of sandpaper.


Oiled

Every time I do this I find the difference amazing.

[Colinmclelland]

Sanding

Ready for tung oil finish: note pile of sandpaper.


Oiled

Every time I do this I find the difference amazing.

That is nice. Really nice.

[Colinmclelland]

Looks fiddlebacked. Is it fiddlebacked? I know boats!

[RichTheRoadie]

Holy shitballs, how tidy is that?! You're gettin' good at this, Mark...!

Who am I kidding - I'm, what, 6yrs+ on mine now? Not to mention the first test one before that. You've *always* been good at this.