Ally's Explosive: Completed.

Yeah we cant really see what the situation is with the frame. Some before and after shots would be nice if possible.

I love stuff like this :)
 
Update:

IMAG0023.jpg


Sorry to disappoint you all, but those are the best pics i've got. I'm further ahead with this now, so its too late to get any.

The existing weld was removed and new weld added to tidy things up a bit. I tried to keep this to a minimum to avoid heat degredation of the tubing: any damage in this way had allready been done before it came into my hands.

The tubes also had a fair bit of internal corrosion, so I ended up 'holing' some areas which then needed patched. The frame has been submerged in a de-rust bath for a few days to treat inside of the tubes.

The repair ended up looking better, but still not great, it was too far gone to end up with a nice bead of weld without replacing the tubes themselves: In the end I used some metal filler to get the joint looking semi-good.

Ended up filling in the toptube flare and smoothing it out to meet the seat-stays. Looks kind of ok in the end I hope.
 
Wow didnt know Explosif's had brazed seatstay/chainstay bridges. On the Cindercone and Lava Dome frames that I have seen the bridges are tig'd on.

What was the original repair out of interest?
 
Yeah, the rear triangle is brazed on this year, front is TIG. The toptube flares are filled with braze while the main TT join to seat-tube is TIG.

Old repair was MIG, and baisically, just far too much weld and not enough control using this method. The weld also didn't have full-pen as I found out.

I used a 240V TIG inverter with power down to get the contol and had to grind down the rods to around 0.5mm dia. I would have sooner just brazed, but no access to the kit, but the TIG was good and was able to keep heat quite low with the thin rods.

I should have said before, but the joint failed origionally from the previous owner having the seatpost too short and it didn't go into the frame far enough.
 
Interesting. I've seen a '97 Cindercone and '96 Lava Dome both naked (not me, the frames)** and they were 95% Tig'd except for the dropouts and the usual 'braze-ons' like rack mounts, cable stops, and bottle bosses. The Explosif really is quality and more than just a better tubeset it seems.

**


:LOL: :LOL: :LOL:
 
More parts done:

IMAG0090.jpg


These had perhaps seen better days aesthetically, so thought I'd see what could be done with them.

IMAG0094.jpg


I was a bit dubious about doing this to XT mechs.

IMAG0096.jpg


But these were past their best. Wanted to do this to a rear mech for a while.

IMAG0097.jpg


Thought if I didn't do it for this bike seeing as rework is the kind of theme, then I never would.

IMAG0099.jpg


Hope no-one dissapproves.
 
Those mechs are insane! Like them very much. But I wonder how they will look on a bike. Hope it suits the build. Very keen on seeing this project develop further. :D
 
Back
Top