Below 265 SQ/FT Vertigo Cycles Frame Shop Fix Up

[Vertigo Cycles]

Long time lurker here, hoping to draw on so much inspiration that I've witnessed on this board.

My wife and I bought a house in Portland ten years ago this week. Nine years ago, I started a frame building business which I've been running out of a tiny 11'x20' garage shop.

It started simply enough, with a welder and a vertical mill.
mock setup by VertigoCycles, on Flickr

When it became necessary, a little lathe was added and still there was plenty of space.
finishing up by VertigoCycles, on Flickr

I was never not making new tools, and when too good a deal on a 24x36 surface plate came up, I couldn't resist...of course I had to make a stand for it.
IMG_9173 by VertigoCycles, on Flickr

and the new shelf underneath seemed like a great place to move the welder
stays for Tom and Sox by VertigoCycles, on Flickr

I was still doing OK on space until this amazing ShuzTung alignment table came into my life
New Tools by VertigoCycles, on Flickr

and then the small but mighty Deckel arrived
Feed/speed/lead wheels are off. Trying to find the secret bolts that hold on the panel by VertigoCycles, on Flickr

If I could find them, I'd buy three more and I'd sleep on the lawn. The Deckel is an amazing tool and has, by no fault of its own, contributed significantly to the procreation of more frame building tools and the consumption of yet more precious space

Only got one groove cut tonight by VertigoCycles, on Flickr
1" chainstay option coming soon by VertigoCycles, on Flickr
the whole thing by VertigoCycles, on Flickr

fork/seatstay fixture by VertigoCycles, on Flickr

Rube Goldberg would be proud by VertigoCycles, on Flickr

In 90* mode by VertigoCycles, on Flickr

upload by VertigoCycles, on Flickr

a motorbike snuck in when I wasn't looking
suspension swap by VertigoCycles, on Flickr

IMG_5565 by VertigoCycles, on Flickr

and a Diacro #2 hangs out
Math is cool by VertigoCycles, on Flickr

There's so much more stuff in there including a washer and dryer as well as a couple more bikes that have to get moved in and out any time I need to get to work. For the most part, it looks a bit like this now.

Rainy season means I need a bigger garage by VertigoCycles, on Flickr

It's what I'd call functional but inefficient. When I can get a big enough chunk of time, I can get some pretty decent work done

Off to decent start this AM by VertigoCycles, on Flickr

FOR SALE by VertigoCycles, on Flickr

Vertigo 29er - Drive side by VertigoCycles, on Flickr

New seat tube treatment by VertigoCycles, on Flickr

I'm to the point where the big bottleneck is the lack of organized space and freedom of movement which leads to me putting tools down wherever I am at the moment...which of course leads to lost minutes because my short term memory is as sharp as a spoon. My main fixture is on a rolling stand that gets tucked in between mill#2 and the lathe along with a JD2 Bender. It's a pain when I have to get to the lathe.

The first order of business is to mount the fixture to the ceiling in such a way that I can push it up and out of the way when I'm not using it but I can get at it easily when it's needed. The only space available for this is currently occupied by the decades old garage door opener so this weekend I get to free up some space by installing this.

IMG_7131 by VertigoCycles, on Flickr

 

[930dreamer]

Very nice work.

 

[JustinS]

Excited to see where this goes!

 

[yaidunno]

Awesome stuff in here! How in the world are you polishing that weld so well without disturbing the grain of the mating pieces?

 

[Vertigo Cycles]

Thanks yaidunno!

I don't polish the welds at all, that's why the surface finish looks like it does. I only build with titanium and I pre-finish all the tubes with a scotch-brite belt on a dynafile before welding and then just do the best job I can at maintaining my gas coverage.

It helps to have a solid cleaning ritual too. I only use 6/4 ELI wire (Extra Low Interstitial) which has less oxygen than standard 6/4 wire. The tubes get cleaned mechanically and then washed with dawn and then get a solvent bath in an ultrasonic tank. The wire also gets the scotch-brite rub, followed by a wipe with a denatured alcohol soaked lint-free cloth.

I'm also using a custom welding cup that has much better columnar flow and coverage than anything commercial I've seen.

Put all those things together and that's why the welds come out like this.

FWIW, I leave them as is, even if there's a bit of color in it. I figure it's like a fingerprint. Every frame has some imperfection at the hand of the builder and this is one way I can show the human-ness of the process.

 

[RivennHewn]

Just simply amazing work.

 

[yaidunno]

Very cool. Thanks for the run down on Ti welding. I never realized it could be welded with next to no HAZ.

Keep up the great work, I look forward to the updates!

 

[Gearhead88]

Inspiring ! to say the least.

 

[Skyline]

Thanks for posting. Awesome work.

 

[longlivepunk]

Wow, that's a lot in that little space! Can't wait to see what all you do to get it sorted out. Those are some beautiful welds and nicely made tooling too. I built my own bike frame once at the United Bicycle Institute in Ashland, Oregon. Just steel, but man was it ever fun. And flying off drops and jumps on something you made is an amazing feeling.

That seat-tube sticker is AWESOME, by the way. Haha!

 

[Vertigo Cycles]

Wow, that's a lot in that little space! Can't wait to see what all you do to get it sorted out. Those are some beautiful welds and nicely made tooling too. I built my own bike frame once at the United Bicycle Institute in Ashland, Oregon. Just steel, but man was it ever fun. And flying off drops and jumps on something you made is an amazing feeling.

That seat-tube sticker is AWESOME, by the way. Haha!

Thanks longlivepunk! There's only so much that I can do but I'm determined to make this space work better for me until it's favorable to move into something else.

How long ago did you take your frame class? They always have great instructors down there. Kish, DeSalvo, Sadoff...plus the guys on staff are outstanding. I was an instructor at the UBI in Portland for a little over a year and mostly had a great time while I was there. The staff was great and it was nice to pass on some knowledge but I found that my time there was interfering with my ability to get my own work done and that after working for myself for so long, I found it difficult to work for someone else. Still, I'm appreciative of my time there, it served a purpose and I met some fantastic people.

 

[HellaFab]

Very nice.

Cool to hear more about it than I get from following you on instagram.

subbed

 

[azcanc]

Complete bikes or just frames / Forks?

 

[Vertigo Cycles]

Complete bikes or just frames / Forks?

Complete bikes only at this time.

That's the short answer to a longer story but here's the medium length abridged version.

I started mountain biking on the east coast (I grew up in MD) in the late 80's. By around 1994 I had pretty much immersed myself into riding observed trials. It had a huge influence on where I chose to ride, my riding style and my bike preferences. By the late 90's, I was designing trials frames that I contracted out, designing trials components (also contracted) and was consulting a bit for a couple of small trials component manufacturers.

Flash forward a few years...my riding style and preferences never really changed, but 29ers had become a solid "thing" in the industry. Only everything available was being built very conservatively around the components that were available at the time. The bigger wheels created some challenges with chainstay clearances, front derailleurs and chainstay lengths and I took it as a personal challenge to make bikes that I'd like to buy...short stays and in my preferred geometry range...mostly as a selfish endeavor to actually get the type of bike that I'd enjoy but with bigger wheels.

As mentioned, tucking in the back end created some challenges so I took it upon myself to sort out the issues...sometimes requiring 150mm hub spacing (to push the chainline out by 7mm to create clearance between the chainstay and chain ring), using wider BB shells and sometimes modifying cranksets to widen the chainline without requiring the wider shells. It's a lot of effort to go through and I decided that the only way I can 100% control the process and make absolutely certain that my customers are going to be 100% stoked on their new bike was to make sure that I had all the parts in house and could check clearances with the actual parts and assemble the bike before it leaves my shop.

With all the fat wheel offerings out there and a huge variety of rim widths that change the shape of the tires in significant ways, it's the only way forward that made sense to me and I think everyone's better off for it.

 

[tjf]

Cool. I love a hand-built road bike. My current ride is a Lynskey.

 

[Colin Len]

I don't really know anything about bikes but my brother is really into cycling and I've got to share your flickr with him, looks like there's tons of good bike/fab **** in there. Looks like you do great work!

 

[bikeguy5]

Wow. amazing. I really want a deckel

 

[Bronson]

Cool shop, I can see where You might want a little more room, though.
Beautiful work!!!!

 

[kjdhawkhill]

Cool. I love a hand-built road bike. My current ride is a Lynskey.

My forever ride is a Lynskey. I bought before I started having kids, knowing the luxury wouldn't be around when trying to pay for daycare and save for college. My Powerball/Megamillions collection is mostly Ti, and a little steel here and there.

Realistically, I'm 5 years or 1 divorce, minimum, away from buying a boutique bike, but I love looking at them.

 

[sean Buick 76]

Welcome, nice work on the frames!!! I am also into trials, I collect and ride them... I am going to stick around to see more!

 

[longlivepunk]

Thanks longlivepunk! There's only so much that I can do but I'm determined to make this space work better for me until it's favorable to move into something else.

How long ago did you take your frame class? They always have great instructors down there. Kish, DeSalvo, Sadoff...plus the guys on staff are outstanding. I was an instructor at the UBI in Portland for a little over a year and mostly had a great time while I was there. The staff was great and it was nice to pass on some knowledge but I found that my time there was interfering with my ability to get my own work done and that after working for myself for so long, I found it difficult to work for someone else. Still, I'm appreciative of my time there, it served a purpose and I met some fantastic people.

I was there in early 2007, took the pro repair/shop op course, advanced wheels and suspension, and did the TIG seminar with Jim Kish then the actual frame-building class with Mike DeSalvo. They were awesome, the whole experience was great. I love the area too. Haha yeah, after working for yourself or as a consultant for that long I could definitely see having a hard time working for others.

As far as your position on only selling complete bikes, I absolutely agree. Your actual product is only one part of the bike, and for it to perform the way it should you don't want to have to trust someone else to assemble and adjust it properly or even to get quite the right parts. Sadly in the cycling industry most people involved don't take it very seriously so the quality of the work is usually pretty lacking. I can't tell you how many times I've been at an event or looking over a friend-of-a-friend's bike and they say "Oh yeah, I always take my bike to this really GREAT mechanic..." and there's something blatantly wrong. Keep up the good work!

 

[Vertigo Cycles]

I capitalized on the rarity of warm sunshine this weekend and took off to the coast range on Saturday for a little trail riding. Then today my family and I spent the better part of the day walking around in the woods (my 6 y/o daughter caught a snake!)

No progress was made on the garage, so I'll leave you with a taste of work that I was able to do

IMG_7126 by VertigoCycles, on Flickr

IMG_7127 by VertigoCycles, on Flickr

IMG_7128 by VertigoCycles, on Flickr

 

[drj0n]

another lurker - great to follow along ~

 

[moto367]

I capitalized on the rarity of warm sunshine this weekend and took off to the coast range on Saturday for a little trail riding. Then today my family and I spent the better part of the day walking around in the woods (my 6 y/o daughter caught a snake!)

No progress was made on the garage, so I'll leave you with a taste of work that I was able to do

IMG_7126 by VertigoCycles, on Flickr

IMG_7127 by VertigoCycles, on Flickr

IMG_7128 by VertigoCycles, on Flickr

Great thread and awesome job on the frames and welds. In the second pic, is that the ground strap with alum foil? What welder are you using? Again, nice job!

 

[Terranova]

You guys and your bike frames! Metal **** moving artwork. Beautiful standing still and beauty in motion.

 

[kjdhawkhill]

You guys and your bike frames! Metal **** moving artwork. Beautiful standing still and beauty in motion.

 

[zedXmick]

Beautiful craftmanship on the bicycle frames. WOW!!

 

[Vertigo Cycles]

Great thread and awesome job on the frames and welds. In the second pic, is that the ground strap with alum foil? What welder are you using? Again, nice job!

The foil is sort of a makeshift plug. The weld pictured is the seat tube to the bottom bracket and there's another vent hole (covered by that foil) for the down tube. If I left the hole open, two things would happen. 1. the argon that I'm using to purge the frame would escape and would create an eddy that would pull air into that tube, causing contamination inside the tubes and a scrapped frame. 2. the eddy current would also get drawn into the Ar flow coming from the torch and would contaminate the weld and I'd scrap the frame.

I have a little stainless tapered plug that I usually use, but I drilled a larger vent hole than normal on this frame so it wouldn't fit.

As for the welder, it's a Miller Dynasty 200DX. I have a water cooled torch for it, but I don't use it on bike frames because the amperage is generally pretty low so I stick with a CK superflex air cooled line and a #9 flex head torch body. I love the superflex lines and usually wrap a couple of coils around my arm to take the weight of the lines off my hand.

Thanks for the compliments everyone!

I moved a bunch of stuff out of the shop by making some shelves in between the studs of our little shed out back. No photos because it really isn't very exciting but I was able to clear out about 12sq/ft of shelf space which is a pretty good start.

 

[Vertigo Cycles]

Incidentally...if anyone near PDX is looking to buy a South Bend Heavy 10 and the Wells Index Model 55 Vertical mill, hit me up. I think I just found my next lathe.

 

[Vertigo Cycles]

The old door opener is gone...it's amazing how quickly things disappear from streetside around here...and the Liftmaster is installed but I need to neaten up the wiring so no pics just yet. It seems crazy to be excited about newly discovered ceiling space, but I am nonetheless.

As much as I'd like to take a week off to reorganize, it's not in the cards so while I'm considering exactly how to reposition mill #2 and the lathe, I have to keep moving.

I'm in the middle of building a couple of fat bikes, both of which are getting custom width bottom bracket shells that I turn out of some 2" x 0.180" 3/2.5 titanium tubing. The Shells get turned to 1.791" I.D. at the ends and 1.860" over a long center section for weight reduction. After they're welded into the frames, they'll get faced and bored to 45.95mm for a press fit bearing assembly.

Untitled by VertigoCycles, on Flickr

Untitled by VertigoCycles, on Flickr

They still need to be cleaned up. I take pretty shallow passes with the boring bar because if I try to hog out material, my little SB lathe can't handle it. A little bit of coolant helps keep it from building too much heat. I've gone too fast before and had the ti nests catch fire. Lesson learned.

I can't embed video's here so here's a link (warning, super boring) https://www.flickr.com/photos/vertigocycles/16246289074/

Race Face makes some pretty stellar new carbon cranks but there's been some debate on spindle compatibility between two models - the Next SL and SixC. Race Face's own official line is that they changed the taper specifically to eliminate the possibility of Enduro and Downhill racers using the lighter weight SL arms on their race bikes. I actually have a desire to cross breed these two cranks so I did a little investigating. It turns out that they're actually compatible (with some mods that I'll be doing at a later time)

 

[Vertigo Cycles]

My mother-in-law is in town and I have more time than usual to get things done so I'm doing my best to take advantage of it.

During certain times of the year, I have to move a long-tail bicycle and my KTM 990 in and out of the shop to work. The machine locations have been bugging me for a while so I took a few hours today to scoot them around the shop a bit to open it up. They didn't have far to go so a scrap piece of hot rolled 3/8 under the back pads of the mill and a long bar got the job done.


Machine Tetris by VertigoCycles, on Flickr

Lift by VertigoCycles, on Flickr

Done moving machines, now on to the details by VertigoCycles, on Flickr

The bigger pieces are in their new homes for the time being and now I need to put all the little things away to make the shop functional again. Hopefully this will be short lived...I'm going to check out a new-to-me lathe this week and with any luck these two pieces will be gone to make way for something a little bigger.

 

[slodat]

I'd love to see an update on your shop and work!

 

[Vertigo Cycles]

I'd love to see an update on your shop and work!

It's been a while I guess. Much has changed, I picked up the big lathe, sold the small one and my #2 milling machine and the motorcycle permanently lives outside now. I put in some new lighting last year, picked up a couple of 44" tool chests that need a bench top and am about to rearrange it all again this coming month and I'll try to do better about posting photos here.

 

[Richied]

Hi I was wondering what software you were using with your di arco? I’m a shop teacher in upstate ny and I self fund a club at the hs I work at. And I’m looking for something like that to build a subframe for our motorcycle project next year. I have a jd bender but I’m sure itcant be that different.
Thanks in advance and great job on the house and shop

 

[wingnutthehutt]

Is the lathe table one that came with the lathe, or is that something you found and repurposed? It's a neat piece.

 

[Vertigo Cycles]

Hi I was wondering what software you were using with your di arco? I’m a shop teacher in upstate ny and I self fund a club at the hs I work at. And I’m looking for something like that to build a subframe for our motorcycle project next year. I have a jd bender but I’m sure itcant be that different.
Thanks in advance and great job on the house and shop

Well, I sold both Di-Acro's to two different friends so they're gone. I never had to do anything complex with them anyhow so software isn't necessary.

I made some racks using 3/8" tubing and once I was introduced to the concept of "gain" I made a spreadsheet for all the bends I had to do with the length of the straight sections and calculated lengths for the bend sections (adjusted for gain) and was able to part off a tube, do all the bends and then have the two ends meet back up perfectly to be welded. It's possible that there are charts out there that you could use if that's what you're after. If you're looking to do 3D modeling for frame design, I'm afraid I won't be of much use to you there.

 

[Vertigo Cycles]

Is the lathe table one that came with the lathe, or is that something you found and repurposed? It's a neat piece.

The table under the Heavy 10 came with the lathe when I bought it but I'm certain it's for the 48" bed version and not the 36" bed lathe that I had. I had to notch out the lip to use the change gears and the excess table was just used as a storage bench. That lathe is long gone now.

 

[wingnutthehutt]

Right on.

 

[Vertigo Cycles]

So, it's been a while...

Back in late winter, I intended on finally taking the time to build a cabinet or two to make storing and accessing things in my shop a little easier. Before I could do that, I needed to make my big lathe and little mill swap places. While the lathe was out, I thought I may as well replace the bearing in the cross slide that's been crunchy for a long time.

My first mistake was assuming that the bearing was crunchy due to pressure, like when the balls pit the race and the bearing becomes "indexed". It didn't make a whole lot of sense to me, but I was happy to delude myself while thinking of an action plan.

Of course the bearing was crunchy because at some point in it's life, the lathe lived outside, in the PNW, where it rains nine months of the year.

I knew when I pulled the bearing housing off the cross slide, I was in for more than I wanted to commit to.

IMG_0215 by Sean Chaney, on Flickr

The bearing was, of course, in pretty bad shape.
IMG_0219 by Sean Chaney, on Flickr

I got to peek into the leadscrew channel and decided that I was definitely going to tear down the entire cross slide and the compound but was determined to leave the apron alone.

IMG_0214 by Sean Chaney, on Flickr

After removing about a pound of grease from the cross slide

IMG_0217 by Sean Chaney, on Flickr

the state of the compound

IMG_0213 by Sean Chaney, on Flickr

From this point on, I was gloved up, elbow deep in kerosene and naval jelly and unfortunately don't have much in the way of photos. I'll skip to the part where I say that despite the mess, it cleaned up nice and the cross slide lead screw is nice and smooth now with about 0.009" of backlash, which is fine with me.

Phase one done. All I had left to do was to make some leveling feet for it and get it close to the wall.

 

[Joe-R]

Hi Sean,

I got here by way of the Mid-Century Motto Mecca Makeover thread. Sakurma was right, you have talent! I especially like that you do it all in such a small garage. I can relate cuz mine is only 18’ by 18’. Like you, every time I add something I have to rearrange, get rid of something or both! How about some info on the guitar and amp you built?

Thanks!
Joe