Couple of entries ago we ended with a picture of half a frame. Or to be more precise a frame that was missing the swingarm. There is not actually awfully lot of missing from the frame - four tubes and some interconnecting steel plates.
We started to work the upper part tubes. We started by sawing two about two meter tubes that we spot welded loosely together. Since we don't really have a tube bender we chose a method that is three quarts of brute force and on quart engineering. We stuck the other end of the tubes into something we knew is going to hold it's place. We have a big lathe that weights probably a ton and is bolted to a concrete cast base. So it's not moving - I wish I had a pic of the lathe, it's pretty on it's own way.
There they are, tubes heated up. When they were warm enough I did stand there with thick work mittens and pressed the tubes. While warm enough they did bend nicely. And since they were welded together we got too rather identical pieces with a curve of a same radius.
One end these wishbone tubes are going to go into the axle plate stub. That is a simple straight fitting of two tubes. The other end is going to get attached to the top tube of the frame. There will be an angle there in which the wishbone tube end meets the solid top tube. To ensure the fit we drilled the ending of the wishbone tubes into the right angle with a cup drill of the same diameter as the top tube.
From there we got the tubes that fit very nicely both the top tube and the cast iron holding thingy which was left more or less intact while removing the original wishbones. I realize I would like to have more pics about how everything worked here so maybe I'll revisit this entry at some point.
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