The Proteus Framebuilding Book - Proteus Bicycles

emain in the right place and you can use gravity to your advantageto help flow the braze material through the crown. Heat your crownon one side until most of the area around the steering column ishot enough. Usually this is when the flux on the top and bottom ofthe crown begins to turn watery. Feed the brass or silver in fromthe top and, using a stroking motion, bring it down to bottom ofthe crown. Keep adding braze material until it runs out from thebottom of the crown. This way you are assured of having completelyfilled the joint. Work your way from the center to the sides ofthe crown using the stroking motion downvyard . Thendo the sameprocedure on the other side of the crown. Allow the assembly tocool slowly, avoiding drafts.If your steering column did not need filing, use the same procedureexcept lay the assembly on the side. If you try to do thesame procedure as on the filed column, you may find that the crownwill slide down the column as you heat it. Another alternative isto pin the crown in place. To do this, position the crown as Idescribed previously. Then drill a hole through the crown and intothe steering column. Put a nail in the hole and this will hold thecrown in place while you braze. On crowns that do not have predrilledbrake holes the pin hole should be drilled where the brakehole is finally drilled, leaving a cleaner looking piece. Any excessbraze material, flux, or protrusion of the steering column should beremoved now.The next step is to attach the drop outs to the fork blades.First;, having decided on the rake, you will either leave the bladethe way it is, or cut off enough to make the correct rake. Be carefulnot to cut off so much that the fork blades will be too short.55