Albi

This week my dear reader I had a bit of catching up to do since my Cuddles Celebratory Fence (Now with extra Trident) I built with my Dad took up my whole weekend.

Also keeping on the theme of this Tour de France business to celebrate Cavendish's historic win of the Green Sprinters Jersey I bring you this picture of him just before he left on the final stage.

At least he was keeping it real unlike those wussies on their safety bikes! I feel it's important we continue to support these safety bike events especially due to the obvious superiority of the p-far.

Anyway enough shenanigans I had to complete my homework in class. So I cut the step.

Turns out I didn't make it all the way through. By happy cooincidence my friends I created the IPP (International Prototype Poofteenth) in the corner of the step. Unlike the IPK (International Prototype Kilogram) it's not locked away in a french vault but here in our p-far class.  

Surprisingly it turns out the IPP created a dragon.

I named him Albi after Albi Mangels like Cadel he's another Australian hero to all of human kind.

Keep staring I'll wait........ Whilst my Albi is a dragon he's not like definitely not like Albi the Racist Dragon

Roar take that rear forks.

Roar! Yum Yum I wish he was wearing tweed. Unfortunately he enjoyed eating my class mates.

 Roar! No Albi not Trevor he's extremely friendly and chock full of templates!

Roar! No Albi not the Genuine woman you'll completely stuff our gender balance. 

After Albi's rampage I hog tied him and cut the IPP, putting the International Systems of Unit's work back decades. Sorry.

So with the vanquishment of Albi my class mates magically returned to life. This was a great relief otherwise I'd have to build this bike myself.

Whilst I was busy outsourcing my bike work I turned my attention to putting things in line. See a flock of rear forks

 And an arrangement of axles

Then in the spirit of the blog Brett did some work for me by brazing my front forks. Unfortunately as Albi was now deceased he had to use the flames of mordor instead.

Look at those pins aren't they sweet!

Daryl put together a mock up of his forks and handlebars especially for the reader of this blog.

That brings us to about half way through our build. Doesn't time fly when you are curating a p-far.

Bend it like Aaron

Recently on Aaron's blog we've had folksy 70's music, gratuitous Fonzie references, GNMWC(Giant Naked Man With Club), Authentic Frontier Gibberish, more than one sensei and even a brief mention of building a p-far. 

In this weeks installment Aaron brother of Moses borrows his brothers staff to part the commentary on the lateness of last weeks post

And accidentally bent it

Boy you think he'd be a little more forgiving but Moses was all up in my business, he was all like-
'Oh bro WTF you done to my staff, I can't part no sea wit dat, I should go all old testament on your ass'.
Translation - Alas Aaron my Brother.

I tried to lighten the mood with my impersonation of Hur, that usually makes him laugh

But not today. I eventually talked him down but not without consequence 'We cool bro but you owe me, I need some frogs and a snake. I don't care how hard thousands of aquatic amphibians are to find in the desert, just do it'. You know Moses he's a hard man to say no to.

This was bending the backbone for the p-far using a pipe bender,

 it was really hard work as Janine can attest to

I have failed to mention i had a special guest sensei this week. Sensei Bender. 

And this is a whimsical Bender teaching

So much to learn from this Sensei. However I feel some of his messages do differ to my other Sensei's. Nevertheless whilst under his expert tutelage I bent the step to mount the p-far

I still need to cut it down and notch out the marks for grip.

Without this bit mounting a p-far is almost impossible.
Another bending related task this week was bending the ends of the spokes with another tool Brett made.

 Using a block of wood you scientifically bend up straight

Taa daa!

So once I got all my bending out of my system (and Sensei Bender was meditating with fembots) it was time for the creation of the hub.  Essentially putting together the hub flange (I bent) with the axle

This of course was not without injury I believe this was my penance for wronging my bro.

Brett with the flames of mordor

I always wondered where the term red hot came from. 

The master piece. 

So lets recap I bent a lot of things, I had to find amphibians in a desert, I spilled blood for wronging my bro and Sauron did a great job flaming my hub. All in all a great class I can't wait until next week.

Thanks Sensei Bender for your guidance

As thanks this one is for you Sensei Bender  'The humans are dead' by Flight of the Conchords,

Formerly New Zealands forth most popular folk parody duo.

Brandy

This weeks blog is late and I humbly beg the forgiveness of my reader. However a number of non p-far related things have hornswoggled my attempt at writing this blog. 

This weeks class was a real smorgasbord of jobs. Like homer I couldn't stop at just one thing.

The most exciting part was we got our rims back! Just like Brandy they look fine but unlike Brandy they are powercoated from the finest powder from the north of Spain, not silver. 

Aaaand chillax. You'll note they have particularly fine moustache's as well. I wish I had seen this cover earlier so I could use them as templates for my handlebars.

 After carefully inspecting and admiring each others rims it was off to work. Today I was completing a part of the hub I mentioned in the now infamous Grinding blog post. I needed to drill the 60 holes in each to allow the spokes in. First marking the holes.

Then drilling the holes. I only broke 2 bits it was a PB!

Once drilled I got MFTF out to clean them up. 

Then my favourite bit creating 1BTKB7DH (1 better than Kevin Bacon 7 degrees hub)

This required precision engineering, a very precise 1 turn in the vice. 

 They were touched for the very first time.

BTW I've copyrited this look, yes I'm looking at you Lady Gaga.

Then it was time to face my mortal enemy the spoke ending thingy.

To continue my previous list what you are meant to do is a series of different steps from 4 onwards. Once you've knocked the end on the spoke we attach the following doohicky on then give a light tap.

And quicker than you can say 'Brandy you're a fine girl what a good wife you'd be' you have an initial on it.  

Whilst I was busy doing important work my friends were all standing around drinking tea 

In the spirit of friendship I offered to get the milk. 

I've been reliably informed that despite it's udder look this was not the place to get the milk for the tea from. I believe the life time ban on making tea was worth it, however the pitch forks and getting tied to the stake was a bit over the top.

Ps. My run of outsourcing has continued with Janine being conned into doing some drilling for me. (this was obviously before I got the 'milk' )
Pps. So far my nail is still attached.