I have wanted a lathe forever, but it is only due to the sale of my beloved Fiat X1/9 that I have had the space and the funds to achieve this.
According to my research the lathe is at least 70 years old and so achieves several of my other goals in life; to be old, grey and shagged. I am pretty sure it would not satisfy the needs of my new hero, but to a man of simple tastes and limited skills (me), it will do just fine. I will use this to make bits for my frame jig, and probably a few actual frame bits as well.
I also bought this massive beast as well;
I can probably start an antipodean branch of the British Science Museum soon at this rate. Actually I have been to the Science Museum a couple of times, and there has been a quite irritating tendency towards whizz bang interactive computer displays, obviously in an effort to allow modern children to utilise their 20 second attention span and still learn something. I cannot abide this nonsense, give me a vintage wool baling machine in a dusty glass case any day, I can drool over that crap for hours. Clearly I am in my element here.
So on the actual frame building front I have laid out the frame geometry on my workbench so I can check the angles, and started mitering the tubes. I have discovered that this is so far a relatively simple task as long as you take your time, although I have yet to miter both ends of one tube so there is plenty of scope and time for me to bollox it up.
Laid out to check I have all the bits right;
This one was simply a fantasy exercise, so I can make the bicycle equivalent of vroom vroom noises, a quiet hour passed gazing at this, the wide vistas of my imagination taking me effortlessly over high mountain passes... it was only the growing patch of drool on my chest that snapped me out of it;
And finally at the bottom left is my very first mitered joint, exciting stuff I know.
So this week the focus will be on getting jiggy with it, I am gagging let me tell you.
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