[Closed] New bike day, just need to build it "Mk2"

On the basis of this post I've just read the old thread you made!

This should be great to watch evolve!👍

Excellent, looking forward to seeing your ideas.

Rear tyre clearance is the big one. Mounting the seatstays outside of the seat tube is one easy fix. I reinforced the stays with dowelling to get more contact area for the resin but only at the hub ends. Wish I'd done both ends because then you could probably carve some away at the tacking stage before binding.

Yep tyre clearances is a biggy. Mk1 was also quite flexible when putting the power down so I'd like to stiffen the rear end (carbon chainstays?)

Dropped seat stays mounted externaly to the seat tube is a definite. I could make the front triangle first as chain stays is a bit trickier, mounting the chainset and work that out from there would be a solution or integration of a sculpted chainstay bridge.

Also toying with the Idea of carbon lugs, but the additional cost of the carbon is putting me off.....

Easiest way I found to get the tubes mitred correctly was with a hole saw cutter believe it or not. Vertical jig, which you mentioned in your previous post, would definitely help with getting an even wrap. Internal routing again? All internal? That would be cool.

Sculpted chainstay bridge would solve clearance issues at the BB but failing that mounting the stays as far out as possible with the chainset built up as you say (1x?) would give peace of mind before it's fully built and too late to change.

Will be watching with much interest.

It's definitely be 1x with a part swap from my charge plug (which was temp replacement from Mk1).

I'd like to do the wrap out of the jig this time if I can.

Rear mech routing im aiming for full internal if I can get the tubing to work (something more flexible than the Ali tube I used last time.).

Project is starting a bit slower than I'd like, I was hoping the kit was going to turn up during the week so that I can get a plan together but it's a no show....

So it's a Sunday spent clearing the garage in readiness. I bought some 18mm mdf to serve as a base for the jig - would love to get an adjustable Ali jig but my budget can't stretch to another 200 for the parts.

Ill just leave a vid of mki here for now.

Tung oil. That's the other thing I was going to say, for when you get to that stage.

Ok, I got board of waiting for the kit to turn up so I emailed bbbc yesterday and within 30min had a dispatched notification form DHL, and later on an email apologising for the delay.

The kits turned up this morning so I thought I'd do a quick comparison between the bbbc kit (£295) and the bamboobee kit (iirc this was less than £200 Inc import duty, 2years ago).

This is edited and put together on my phone so apologies for spelling/predictive text etc.

Bamboobee kit

Bbbc kit

The Bamboo bicycle club kit, although more expensive is slightly less slick and also different to the Internet pictures. Only small things like the epoxy is in original packaging (I guess a safety measure) and the tubes aren't nicely wrapped in branded paper etc. So minor - but would have been nice.

The tubes in the bamboobee kit are double bonded, as you'll see in my original thread and also were pre finished (part of the reason I built that kit first), so you only have a few hours work before the glue stage. Bamboo with the bbbc kit is raw, unfiniahed so there is a fair bit of cutting sanding and shaping to complete before anything is glued. The do provide a spare toptube, chain stay and seat stay though in case things go sour. Im hoping that I'll be able to use the spare tubes to try out a different toptube and also the spare chainstay to gain mud clearance. The tubes are also frayed on the ends,  from where bbbc have cut them to length. This isnt a bad thing as the effected areas need the top layers removed for the epoxy to bond correctly.

Next, metal work. The headtube and bb on both kits are pretty much Identical. Standard Ali parts. Tge cyclo-cross bbbc kit is avaliable with a. Tapered headtube, but this one is standard 1and 1/8th, I may contact bbbc and see if I can swap for the tapered just for longevity (1and1/8th cx disc forks are very hard to find now). The bbbc dropouts are far superior to the bamboobee kit, propper Ali rather than thin steel and also swappable, the kit comes with horizontal and vertical but bolt through is also available (extra cost - also would require new jig parts I'd have thought).

The hemp cloth in the bbbc kit is also much nicer than the bamboobee, which was an odd flattened rope with a cotton backing. Although I'm still undecided if I'll invest in some carbon fibre.......

The bbbc instructions is like war and peace in comparison to the bamboobee alternative.

The bamboobee kit does come with a full, albeit a little flimsy, jig. I used a backing to make this sturdier. The bamboobee jig is also fixed geometry. The jig parts with the bbbc kit require a sheet of mdf (not included), so about 12quid but this does alow for flexible geometry, I've gone for a standard medium cx build.

The bamboobee kit doesn't allow for any glue/epoxy and I think these cost me another 25quid or so. Where as they are included in the bbbc kit. This is due to international postage regulations according to the bamboobee website.

Im sure I'll get into more details as the build starts......

So here's what came in the box.

Ill aim to sort out work space (in the messy garage) tonight, so for now it's the living room rug.

The tube on the far left is a good 10mm wider than the headtube and would provide a pretty substantial down tube. One of the the next two will be the seat tube and a spare, the next I'm hoping to split down the middle for a 'ovalised' top tube, taking inspiration from the areo build recently shared by bbbc.

Not much progress yet, like I said it's a much longer build than the last project. I just spent a few hours sorting out a clear and clean(ish) workspace in the garage (yes it was that bad). Laid out all the parts and started to inspect and workout how I'm going to approach the build.

First off was cleaning up the Ali dropouts, these are water jet parts that are supplied raw. So 30min with dremmel and a fine sanding wheel to sort the non drive side. They'll probably end up being painted black, but I'm better doing it now than when built up. See photo below for the before and after.

Then I looked at the drive side parts.......

And I'm not happy.

The drive side mech hanger isn't tapped/threaded for a mech! I emailed bbbc earlier in the week regards swapping the straight steerer for a tapered and havent heard back, so another email to them today asking if they can a, send me a threaded dropout and b, sort out a swapping the  steerer tube....

TBH in comparison to the original kit I bought the Bbbc kit seems to have just as many issues. OK it's a bit rough and ready, but it's also £300 - the Ali parts although they'll do the job, arent exactly high quality.

I've also noticed that the disc brake mount will be outbound of where it should be (not in-line with the dropout)....... This is due to the design of the interchangeable dropouts (they bolt to the inside of the Ali plates). It can be fixed with a bit of shimming with washers, but again I'm thinking it could be alot better.

Bbbc are going to send a tapered head tube and threaded mech hanger out today - yay.

I've also two other exciting packages turning up this week......

1st parcel turned up today........

On my BBC road bike kit I also had the untapped mech hanger issue. I just bought a set of taps and some cutting fluid...

...I ended up arsing it up and helicoiling it in the end.

As you know, I'm looking at a modded bamboo MTB build at some point over the winter, so will be watching this thread with interest... Especially since I had some crank clearance issues* on the road bike and want to mod one of their 29er kits to fit a 27+ back end (as well as slacken the HA out too).

[img] [/img]

*comparing the photos on their site I have a suspicion I got supplied with seat and chainstays that were on the thicker end of their tolerance range for road bikes. Or were even from the 'MTB' pile...

I have to be honest, it did feel as it the box of bits was thrown together hastily (prob after I emailed them a week after ordering). It annoys me that items like the mech hanger are unfinished and would require additional tooling and cost.

Your road bike kit looks good colournoise, did it take you long?

My chainstays are also on the thicker end of the spectrum, a similar issue I had on my first build regards tire clearance. Im going to draw up a clearance drawing to see what I can do,. I'm quite tempted to try steam bending the chainstay, rather than cutting and realigning.  A bit like a Boo Bikes have done in the past (pic below). Im also using a Mtb deore triple chainset (converted to 1x) which provides much better clearances than a road chainset.

Always interested in these builds!

Another package today....

Right, 1st bit of propper fettling tonight.....again apologies for any predictive text issues (doing this on my phone isn't great).

I sanded back the drive side drop out, I'm waiting on the threaded  mech hanger  before I can finish that side. But I also mounted up the non drive side with the supplied chainring bolts. The bolts are quite short though,  they only give about 3mm of contact, which I'm sure is fine - but I'll probably swap them out for longer ones if I can find some

You'll see from my earlier post that the seattube turned up today. Here's a pic with the Ali shim test fitted (took a little sanding). Not sure if I'll be able to prevent corrosion between the carbon and Ali at this junction - so I'll have to have a think on that......

Over the weekend I aim to get the jig set up, so I went through those parts. Not sure if I'll modify the dropout mount as it's set up for 135mm hubs and mine is a 130 disc hub..... I wasn't happy with the bb mount as there was only a small disc holding the bb in the correct place and this was 2mm too small, so the bb could rattle a little in the mount.

You can see the part just below the bb tube, Here's a pic of it in the bb - you can see the paper around the disc.

Now I don't own a lathe so I cut a disc from a bit of 22mm mdf and used a drill and finger sander to get it to fit snugly in the bb. I'll prob mack another to fit in the top.

Anyway that's as far as ive got today. Im hoping the tapered headtube will arrive tomorrow. As you can tell it's a bit Heath Robinson, but I hope to get it to a finish I'm happy with. Oh, I also have made some 6mm shims for the disc brake, but forgot to take photos.

Your road bike kit looks good colournoise, did it take you long?

Cheers. I'm pretty happy with the finish overall and it rides just fine.

I built it a bit piecemeal, so accurate timescales are tricky. I'd say a short day for cutting, mitres and tacking together. Another short day for wrapping the lugs. A long day for shaping, sanding and finishing the lugs. Couple of hours for prep and lacquer. Finally, many frustrating evenings of filing the dropouts to get tyre clearance and trying to sort the crank arm clearance issues.

Next time I'll definitely be building the rear end with a crankset mocked into place, and some kind of spacer to stand in for the rear tyre...

That's pretty much 5he time scale of my last one. This one will be a fair bit longer as each joint could take a day of laying up, let alone finishing.

Regards the backend, I'll do a print out of what I want and lay out the poles to see how I can best achieve it. It's a pity bbbc don't include it within their drawing - pretty sure they do with the Fat Bike version as its a bit more complicated.

As I said before I want to try steam bending the seat /chain stays to get a nice curve back into the bb and seat tube junctions.

Tapered headtube has turned up in time for the weekend, which is great. The threaded mech hanger wasn't in the package though..... May have to try threading it.

I'm guessing bbbc buy in lots of headtubes at max length and then cut them down to size to match the rider. The top edge looks like its been cut with a pipe cutter - rough edge and slightly bulbous.

As I'm using carbon fibre joints I need to isolate the aluminium from the carbon. Carbon fibre reacts with aluminium and causes galvanic corrosion - something alot of the 80's and early 90's custom carbon bikes suffered from. I maybe wrong but iirc the carbon essentially causes the aluminium to oxidise where they touch, especially if you get the joint wet (like in a mtb or cx situation). The surface of the Ali becomes covered in Ali oxide (white powder) and the joint debonds. It's why Ali seatposts get stuck in carbon frames - and why you should use some carbon grease when mixing Ali and carbon fibre parts.

I obviously can't cover the Ali parts with grease, so I'm going to cover the Ali bits in resin and a layer of tissue fibre (very thin fibreglass) first. This should provide some isolation the Ali from the carbon and prevent debonding of the parts at a later date.

Liking what you're doing with it, especially the carbon seat tube.

I kept mine simple and it still took six months lol.

Thanks gecko76, I read through your blog - 1st thing I did this morning was to mark the bb with a L for left and D for drive side!! How's yours holding up with the bb junction?

I did not manage to get as much done as I'd have liked today (out on the mtb tomorrow).  But that's mainly because I was picking up a wallpaper steamer to make a steam box!

I did manage to remake the round headtube jig parts and put a small hole at the base of the seat tube slot. Annoyingly there was no seat tube glue in my kit! So I'll but some specific Ali/carbon glue.

I also got the jig together, Ive covered parts that are likely to get stuck to other parts with orange ptfe tape. The head tube has this internally and the bb junction externally due to the threads.

🙂 BB junction is happily taking all the abuse I can give it. Stiff yet compliant etc.

Yours is shaping up well.

Good to hear it's holding up gecko76!  Must have been a heart wrenching moment when it happened!

I've bought some methacrylate adhesive for the seattube. I went with this over a standard 2part epoxy because Id like torun 2 bottle cages. One reason I wasn't sure about running a carbon seattube (again more work).

This adhesive is formulated for metal to carbon fastenings so I'm hoping I can surface bond two bottle cage mounts to the tube when I bond the seattube sleave.  I'll then wrap reinforce with carbon tow prior to bonding up the frame. This should give me some practice with wrapping carbon tow as well.

loved the last thread... will no doubt love this one too...

carry on sir!

Quick update (although no photos). Ive not managed to get much done this week, work and racing at the weekend got in the way.

I have, however, covered the bb and headtube in tissue glass and epoxy. I did have a couple of issues - firstly I put a little too much hardener In the epoxy. For some reason the epoxy I had needed to be mixed in a 100/3 ratio, and I only needed a little (50ml?) so putting 1.5ml of hardener in was tricky. It ultimately ended up getting too thick too quick and braking up the delicate tissue glass as it was brushed on.

Secondly I didn't think I'd do the of the dropouts so didnt prep them, but had spare glass and epoxy so gave it a go. However once the epoxy had cured it haddent stuck to the Ali on all sides so I picked it off again where it haddent adhered. I've now roughened and cleaned these surfaces.

Im now ready to get the downturn in possition,  but I need to decide on the internal cable route first. Specificly where it exits around the down tube.

Really enjoy this thread, and the previous, but one thing I'm most impressed by is your persisten good humour despite all the things wrong/missing in your kit - no glue, wrong headtube, wonky dropouts, no threading on the hanger, etc, etc.  I know I'd be well pat the point of sending it all back and demanding a refund if I was in your shoes. Is there frustration behind it, or are you just willing to cut them a lot of slack becasue they're a small poutfit, and it's part of the charm?

TBH Im cutting them a chunk of slack, the kit is twice the cost of the Chinese one I got a couple of years ago (the reason I whent with the original one in the first place), and for 300notes you can buy a fairly decent frame. But for me it's about the experience of building it, stuff like this is a little frustrating and although bbbc are small, they are quite well publicised and have been going several years now, so should be getting it right.

The instructions are well produced but still require you to be a relatively good diy'er or have so experience. They also need you to be pretty well versed on bikes. Things like shimming for the disc brake isnt mentioned in the manual - infact disc brakes aren't In there at all. It does feel a little like bbbc concentrate on there workshop weekends rather than the kit.

I bought a seat clamp, 28.6 as listed on the bbbc website. But according my calipers I need a 30mm. Something I learnt from the first kit is that I'll expect to spend some cash on stuff that's not quite right.

I think I've spent around 200 in addition to the kit on carbon fibre, glue, tools etc

Agree you'd need to be pretty well versed before makng  the jump into something like this.... but I do think anyone reading this, even vvery mechanically competent folks, would think bbbc come across as a bit of a shambles/ Every post seems to be you patiently dealing with yet another issue they've caused. Am sure it will put a lot pf people off.

Anyhow good luck, I'll certainly keep reading

Quickly took a photo before work.

Bonded in the Ali to the seat tube last night, theres a little nugget of epoxy over spill internally which I'll need to remove. Also started to sand the bb/downtube junction, it's not quite there yet - I need to form it around the seattube, which I'll prob bond in place this week.

An hour or so of sanding and measuring tonight.....

Headtube junction

There's some pretty big gaps here and there, but that should be fine as they'll get filled later. Bamboo doesn't need to be 100% adjacent to the next tube as it's not like welding/brazing where your directly joining the materials. The carbon fiber (or hemp) acts as a the bridge between the two.

Not been able to touch this for a few weeks, but I managed an hour or two this afternoon .

Top tube is now shaped, prepped and ready for bonding in place. The seattube now has the bottle bosses bonded in and the carbon tow is prepped ready to reinforce the area around them. I've decided to bond up the front triangle first and the make a 2nd vertical jig for the chainstay alignment.

I've also got hold of a set of Lauf grit forks, for the final build ! So it'll be super niche.

Carbon has met carbon and epoxy, let the mummification begin.

In this case, some carbon tow reinforcements around the bottle cage bosses.....

Great thread.

Coming along nicely mate!

Bog reveal time... .

The one on the right was my 1st go and is much cleaner as my hands were less sticky giving more control on the fibers. Little bit of clean up required on the left one - but I've done that since taking the photo (surprisingly easy with a sharp blade).

And, the ugly side.....

Due to the way I wrapped the fibers around the bosses there was always going to be some voids on this side. Black milliput will sort it - I could cover the area with carbon weave but I'll leave that decision toward the end of the project.

Seatpost is being bonded into possition tonight.

Quick update - front triangle is together and bonded in place, i'll get some photos up later from my phone.

I've used the 5min epoxy that came with the kit, along with a standard Milliput for areas where there are voids that could be considered 'structural'. I did look at buying some specific light weight structural filler especially formulated for carbon fibre, but it was £40 for a 'trial pot' and £100 for a litre.

For areas where filling voids that are nonstructural and getting shape to the carbon joints I've used a Milliput / Micro-Balloon epoxy resin filler mix. The micro balloons are like a fine powder used with epoxy for creating a lightweight filler - a 200ml jar is ridiculous light (50g). This combo was about 15 quid and weighs about the same as the proper stuff. i Just kneed in the micro balloons with the Milliput and it seems to work well. I've also some light weight model making filler (deluxe materials model lite) used for model aircraft, which is easy to sand to get a smooth finish around the joints. But i need to try this with the epoxy first as it could react, it shouldn't but its best to test.

I've done the non-drive side in the jig, i should be able to take the frame out of the jig and flip it for the drive side tomorrow night. This should provide a solid enough base to complete all of the head tube and top tube/seat tube wraps out of the jig completely in a bike stand for 360degree access. The BB junction really needs the chain stays in place so ill prob add some kevlar/carbon sheet to this area only for now.

I've also decided not to do internal routing. I've got a couple of 500mm ti tubes for it, but can't work out how to do it accurately enough. I've got some nice alloy cable guides which I'll bond in place. I may use the ti tubing around the bb junction and possibly for a internal dropper post route though.

Headtube mummification - that'll be a couple layers of kevlar / carbon weave and 100m of 12k carbon tow under there.

It'll probably have another 50m of tow at some point.

Looking very neat.

Oh, white ptfe tape is easy to get to look neat. 100m of Tiny, thin, carbon fibre ribbon is an absolute pain - especially with sticky fingers.

Big reveal tomorrow.

If your wondering why I didnt start at the BB junction - I may put a couple of layers of kevlar down there tomorrow, but I want to wrap that area with the chainstays in place. Not sure how I'm going to approach the chainstay tyre clearances yet. Im a bit loathsome to try steam bending, as I don't really want to wait a couple of months drying them out in the airing cupboard. I may try heat bending first.

Ta da!

Right, I've been thinking about chainstay clearance for the last couple of days. I've tried heat bending bamboo briefly, with no real results other than some scorched bamboo (sorry no photos). Steam bending is definitely our as I'd like to complete it this year and waiting a month or two to dry out the stays would be annoying. So that leaves me with a couple of options. The cotswolds Jen ride is calling as a first ride!

Either Physicaly cut and sections of bamboo to form a chainstay yolk. Or, form my own chainstay yolk and reinforce with carbon . I think I'm edging towards the latter. Theres a few options with this, balsa wood or foam core to form a male mold and go from there...... But I think I'll use some of the ti tubing I bought to get the correct curves first and then work out from there. This will give me time to check tyre clearances as well as chainrings.

Right, chainstays....

As ive said above I'm building up an armature from 8mm ti tubing to get the form roughly correct.

This is now glued and milliput'ed in place. I must have spent an hour measuring and playing around with it, matching it up against my charge plug to try to get the angles correct and still be inline with the chainstays. Ive gone with a dropped chainstay design on the drive side - it's not extremely but it should be enough. This coupled with some deore cranks should enable loads of mud clearance.

Tonight the frame will come out of the jig and I'll put on the bb/chain set/40t ring and if all goes well start building up the form of the chainstay yolk around it with light weight filler. I've left the end of the ti tubing slightly long so that these can be bonded inside the bamboo chainstays.

Oh if your wondering what the offcut of bamboo is in the photo, that's approx 45mm did so equivalent to a large gravel tyre - so LOADS of room.

I've also started thinking wheels, the set I have won't fit the Lauf forks, or the rear as they are qr 130mm disc wheels from my Mk1. So a visit to my LBS (Slam69)  last night and I'm ordering some hope / DT Swiss hoops. Wheels will be the only place with some colour on the bike......

Ok, quickly fitted a chainset with 40t, turns out I'd given it too much mud clearance and not enough chainring clearance on the drive side. So a quick adjustment with the pipe bender and it's gluing back up again. Sorry, completely forgot to take a photo. The weekend will be spent building the area up and then another check before more carbon fiber.

Ok, scariest part of the build - the rear end.....

You can see the chainstays a bit asymmetrical in this photo. It's the best way I can get big mud clearance at the back. 'fugly' but the rest of the bike will be a, erm, acquired taste.

And, yes the non drive side crank arm will clear the chainstay - by about 5mm.

Had to do a little more bending to get it all to fit, but I'd used my strongest glue this time which worked a treat.

Heres a photo of where I've finished up for the night. I completely forgot to sand off the top layers of bamboo on the chainstays before glueing them inplace, but thats ok as I can do that after its all glued up.

I've mounted the tops of the seatstays to the outer sides of the top tube. This will give me loads of wrapping space for carbon to really fill up the area and also it's the widest point, providing the best mud clearance. I toyed with doing dropped 'areo' style stays, but the structural down sides led me away from that.

I've roughed in the chainstay yolk, with some milliput and micro beads. The finer finishing of it will have to wait until it's off the jig as I'll nee to refit the chainset to check things again and access is poor on that side with it in place on the jig.

Much like my last build, the big question is will the rear wheel align correctly. I checked and double checked with a square, tape and by eye repeatedly. But couldn't work out if the dropouts were straight or not...... Some angles were fine, others looked out (twisted?)  I'll have to check in a few days when it's a bit more solid..... All I can say for sure is that the chainstays were the correct length and everything was snugly fitted.

This is looking well good mate.

I used to use heat shrink to clamp down wraps on carbon  bonded tubes. On weirder shapes I had good but inconsistant results using sandwich/freezer vacuum baggers. Making a decent vacuum set from a fridge pump changed my life...

https://www.jmldirect.com/kitchen/kitchen-accessories/food-sealer-vacuum-heat-sealer-machine/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI-OWG9Lbr3gIVxZ3tCh3h_QDIEAQYBSABEgL9HfD_BwE

Heat shrink is a good call, I'll have to do some googling. Not sure if/hoe that jml vacuum bagger would work on areas like the bb though... Good for small parts though.

Using woven glass fibre to separate aluminium and carbon is the normal way and a lot tougher than tissue.

Easy Composites are a good source of materials.

Could have gone down the woven gf route, but it's a bit to late now.... TBH little of the bb is now on shown and 95% is pre covered in epoxy which will/should provide enough of a barrier.

+1 for Easy Composites.

anyone looking at small scale composites should check here. I learnt so much.

https://www.rcgroups.com/composites-fabrication-210/?s=f8b4d555a0ef3e055b15b8836e6d9d31&

epoxy will absorb moisture so wont be 100% but done now. The main problem will be at edges - eg if you face the BB area you expose some carbon and some aluminium which then get connected by water and the aluminium corrodes in from the edge. Simply painting the edge or using some grease to block the water ingress will help a lot.

I guess the long term killer of bamboo bikes is moisture ingress into the bamboo and up to the joints anyway. Not that that would put me off, always fancied one myself.

For the gaps at the edge of tubes something like gorilla glue could be useful as it is a form of mildly expanding polyurethane so will be tough and expand to fill the gaps.

Zapp Pink wicking superglue solves a lot of problems.

For the gaps at the edge of tubes something like gorilla glue could be useful as it is a form of mildly expanding polyurethane so will be tough and expand to fill the gaps.

Yeah, I used Gorilla Glue as the joint 'filler' on my bamboo build.

My original build used gorilla glue, I've not needed to on this one.

Andy l - The bb will me smothered in grease so I'm hoping long term corrosion won't happen. As you say most bamboo bikes die due to the damp environment we live in, and my garage isnt exactly water tight. I can see the green fuzz of doom already growing on the inside of the off cut tubes. This is why I took Mk1 inside for the winter.....

As for easy composites, that's where I bought all the carbon fibre and glue from.so it's a +1 from me too (although postage is on the high side if you just want one small item).

Ok, just checked the frame - took it out of the jig and stuck a wheel in it.......and the back end was crooked.

But Ive worked out why. The jig comes with various precut mud spaces and block,  the large 135mm spaced block which spreads the dropouts has a deep groove down the middle. I'd placed the glove up tight against the long 10mn threaded bar, however the wood was fouling the bolts of the dropouts. If you look in my last photo you can see the mdf splitting in this section - which I thought was strange last night.

Bbbc recently changed the dropout design to a modular type, hense the bolts. I don't think that theyve updated the jig design to accommodate this. I may have to email then later.

Anyway. Luckily the non drive side came away from the frame cleanly for realignment.  This also gave me opportunity to sand the parts that I forgot about. After adjusting the jig so that It would'nt foul the dropouts, I've inserted a 8mm spacer on the non drive side and glued it back up, this 'should' bring things back into alignment - ill check this afternoon.

Until the wife lent it against a radiator and cracked the top tube end to end!

I wonder how the bamboo was cured? Possibly not very well? I believe in Japan bamboo will be stored for up to 3 years to turn it into timber, or you can put in at oven for a short period which is more likely to lead to cracks.

It cracked because both ends of the tube were sealed up with loads of epoxy and hemp. I hadn't sealed the frame (why I brought it indoors), so it had absorbed moisture over time and was starting to fur up. When the heating turned on in the early morning and heated up the top tube pole, the moisture in the tube had no where to go (normally it would escape from the ends of the tubes). This ended up with a rapid release of the moisture through the side of the tube, with a loud crack noise.

Shed lent the frame direct onto the rad, and buried it in cloths and stuff.....

Bamboo is kind of notorious for being prone to rotting and does have a tendency to split as it dries out. It's more likely this is why it split when subject to heat rather than internal air pressure.

It's not the internal air pressure inside the void of the pole, that caused it to crack, rather the moisture trapped in the vascular bundles within the bamboo structure itself.

Photo of the now straight (I hope) jig.

And the 8mm spacer in place.

About as straight as ill get......

Not great mud clearance on the drive side, but should be enough for 42c tyres - 35c in there at the moment.

Certainly will be..... Er...... Unique

Certainly low and slack enough. Yes, unique, that was the word that leapt to mind 🙂

It looks slack due to the lack of headset - it over exaggerates the angles.

As for unique - Slam69 are sorting me out a rather special set of 'look at me' wheels to match the rest of the bike which are being built next week.....

I do need new bar tape and a saddle....

Impressive amount of clearance. Good work.

It does look like a primary school plasticine model now that I look at the photos taken this morning! - it looks alot better now.

I aim to get the rest of the carbon fiber wrapped over the next week or so, which less daunting now that the back end is on. Just have to work out a good layup of the bb and chainstays (seatstay junction is relatively simple), I'll prob cut up some paper templates.

Bit of sanding and it's looking less fugly.

The different colours are purely because I only had black milliput left. Not sure when I'll be able to get some carbon on there, maybe by the end of the week?

Slam69 are sorting me out a rather special set of ‘look at me’ wheels to match the rest of the bike

Looking good!

An hour and a half of sticky, slippery epoxy and lots and lots of winding later......

And then when I thought the hard part was over, then came trying to get compression with the ptfe tape - due to the nature of the bb area there were loads of concave areas but 2 convex in relation to the tape, so it took two rolls in the end.

Taken the tape off the drive side chainstay, it's still slightly tacky and malleable so I'm leaving the bb junction untill tonight. Theres not enough carbon on the chainstay (used the left overs), bits of bamboo are visible in places. So this will need a second wrap at some point.

Just heard from Slam69 that the 'petrol' coloured spokes I was going to go for aren't avaliable in the correct length...... Guess it'll have to be a bit more stealth than I wanted. It's a shame as ive a few other oilslick/petrol bits I'm using.

Tapes off...

The bb is clean of epoxy which is great, but I did manage to catch, and subsequently cover with carbon, some of the Orange ptfe tape protecting that area. It's just on the edge of the bb she'll so shouldn't be too much of a structural issue.

All looking good there. Can’t wait ti see the finished build.

A hell of a lot of sanding ahead, but thats a rideable frame....

my eyes