Here’s another application for the paste silver.
This is a new frame using the spigot style drop outs from Nova Cycle Supply (www.novacycles.com). I dabbed about a 3/4″ line of material inside the dropout then spread it around evenly, stuck the chain stay in, added some extra flux on the outside in case I didn’t start with enough paste and had to add regular rod style filler.
Click & double click photos for close up…
Paste flux and filler post heating
One can see that a small amount of the paste has migrated to the outer surface of the drop. There were only 2 spots a couple square millimeters that had to be filed. All subsequent clean up was done with polishing compound.
polished drops
Worth noting here. As you can see, plain steel (not SS) can look as good as SS for less money and will retain it’s luster for a surprisingly long time between buffing up (like a year in the SW climate).
The next two photos are the chain stays to BB welds. This time I put paste inside the tubes (stays and seat) to form a small internal fillet and used rod on the external fillets. I’ll put up a picture of the entire finished joint after the down tube is mated.
Welds #1, 4 and 5
I mitered the down tube and brazed it in today. Again I lined the inside of the tube with paste and used rod filler for the external fillet.
Mitered down tube
Post brazing
Post shaping clean up
Now, the neat thing about the butter is that I can even further reduce the size the external fillet because there is now an internal fillet to support the joint. Here is a shot of the head tube joints. The fillet radius is tiny now. If these were regular round tubes it would show better than with the Spirit 8 sided tubes, but you get the idea.
Internal and external silver fillets
Remember to double click to get super close up. Use return arrow to return to text.
…and we’ll jump way ahead and here’s the frame in it’s ready to be built up state.
Click & double click photos for close up…
Zia frame
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