The approach to the island workshop, a 1920s boatyard built for repairing Thames lighter vessels. The boat moorings here are tidal.

Original heavy machinery still features on the island.

My unit – compact, but everything I need in an inspiring setting.

Still some organising to do, but it’s taking shape.

The cockpit – I really like the atmosphere here – skilled yet modest craftsmen come and go in the building and the light and changing tides alter the feeling of the place daily.

Finding a place for everything took time but it’ll pay off.

I bought this old Harris 19-2 torch set on ebay the moment I saw it.

Decades old, but never been lit. Even has a cutting head. I am based at a working boatyard, so you never know, I may find a use for it.

I found some reverse flow check valves for it too. Obviously I’m already using flashback arrestors.

Harris is a US company, but my torch is made in Italy under licence as “Harris Europa”.  It’s really nice to use and very quiet.

Worn shaft (top) and replacement.

Now to transfer the gears..

Laying all the bits out – checking against a diagram is important.

Rebuilt gearbox put back together in the crankcase half.

Top view with gasket in place.

Didn’t fancy riding this too far..

Marking out the template in new steel.

Then I drilled inside the lines on the drill press.

And cut and filed it to shape.

Nearly there.

I brazed it all together with my ace new torch.

I soaked the flux off in a bucket of water.

seemed to go pretty well.

Alignment was good enough.

The finished swingarm. It’ll be powdercoated with the frame and then I’ll push new pivot bushes in.

80mm rake gives this trike around 20mm of trail.

Bolt-on axle housing from an ebay donor trike. It’s one-wheel-drive at this point.

I needed an alignment shaft to keep all bearings within a tolerance of 0.75mm of misalignment.  Gulp..

Sandblasted axle housing with alignment shaft fitted.  Bearing shells are right-threaded English BB size.

I had some fun aligning this frame, I can tell you.  Perhaps a little ambitious for my 4th frame, but I got her made on time, just.

I’ve got balls. Have you?

It was fun to ride.

Cross tyres were chosen for the loose gravel surface it would be ridden on in Wales.

She’s now in Pembrokeshire, South Wales, and I’m told that everyone wants a go..

Photo by Kayti Peschke.

Polished stainless front mech band – protects paint and looks cleaner when removed for singlespeed mode.

My “Wilkinson Mixed Gear” dropouts.

Mudguard extension tube allows for a more rearward wheel in tour mode.

The Wilkinson Wheel Carrier – compatible with lawyer tabs!

Removable shifter bosses pass through a stainless tube brazed inside the downtube.

Seat cluster

Stencil-painted logo

Touring mode!

Singlespeed/fixed mode!

..Better whip out my Herbie Helm lug vice. Stainless, of course.

Checking my hand-filed mitres. Hmm.

New lug and filed lug. Pointy. These can hurt you if you're not careful. Ask Ryan at Oak Cycles.

I wheeled out the Wilkinson "Abominator" jig. I made this in my kitchen a couple of years ago. The swivel vice has a V-groove and I got it from Axminster. I must upgrade soon. Donations welcome.

Silver brazed headtube/downtube. I used Cycle Design's "Stainless Light" flux. It comes off easily with water.

The story so far..

Internal cable routing. How hard can it be?

Some eight hours later, after making sure the internal brass guide didn't touch the tube wall, rattle or kink, I got it all brazed up.

It was rewarding when I got it done.

Lining up everything with the drawing.

The top head lug needed to be blacksmithed to conform to the tube. I tapped it with a small brass drift made from a bathroom door sliding bolt lock, after squeezing it in a tubing block.

And I also had to file the point shorter on the lug, as it was overlapping the first lug's point. A peril of short head tubes.

Now it fits.

Checking the fit in the lug.

Testing the fit on the tube.

Grinding out the chainstay sockets in the BB shell.

My belt and braces approach to dropout alignment.

Cleaning out a chainstay so the brass will take to it.

Fluxed and brazed with brass. Lots of cleaning up to do here.

Time to silver braze a gear cable stop onto the chainstay too.

After soaking the flux off under the tap.

I decided to put the chainstays in on Ryan's frame jig. The stainless band on the seat tube will stay unpainted for a 31.8mm front band-on mech that won't leave damaged paint to be visible in fixed gear mode.

I ran a cord from the dummy axle to the BB to double-check the seat tube/chainstay angle with a protractor.

Using my angle-finder.

I brazed the tops in the jig, then finished in the Park stand.

Next I drilled holes for the bottle bosses. I had to enlarge them slightly with a round file.

I had to improvise a way to hold the diamond reinforcement while I increased the hole diameter.

I tried to resist the temptation to add that little bit more silver just to "make sure", but it gets me every time.

Let's check the rear spacing..

And the left alignment.

..Matches the right alignment according to the Park FAG-2 tool.

Rear wheel looks fairly centred. I built and dished the wheel myself so I know the rim is centred.

Same goes for the fixed rear wheel.

The H-Tools say yes!

Time to use the piece of extruded aluminium I tapped and put an M5 threaded probe through. Use it like the FAG-2 tool but touch the 3rd contact on the wheel rim, not the dropout. This shows that the dropouts are level, and one is not higher than the other.

After pulling the stays around, the other side matches. A perfectly dished wheel is essential for this. This is used before the seatstays are attached. I checked the resulting angle of the chainstays against my drawing to make sure my geometry would stay as expected.

Getting the brake bridge right. A mudguard has to fit in there too. I have only tacked it in here. I got it in the perfect position eventually, and almost straight.

Note to self: procure something more fireproof to shield the drawing whilst tacking. Although we have a cast iron surface plate in the workshop, I tacked the frame tubes on shimmed V-blocks on top of my drawing, which was on top of a sheet of 12mm toughened glass.

These are my fork ends. I'm going to cut the rack mounts off them but keep the mudguard mounts. One is done already in this picture.

Filing them smooth after cutting.

Bending my fork blades in the bender I made. Not 100% happy with the curve I get, but it's not too bad.

Checking the fork rake against my home-made gauge. I want 43mm of rake. There are lines to centre the blade so it's straight.

Cutting the blades to length.

Finding the straightest side of the seat tube. The worst side will be used in the fore and aft plane of the frame to minimise lateral misalignment.

My seat tube is brazed into the bottom bracket shell after tacking and checking alignment.

Oh yeah, and they let me try out brazing a bottom bracket assembly at work a few weeks back - here it is (it was rejected)... Come off it, it was my first one!

Here's my fork held in the Wilk-O-Matic SPX-3000 De-luxe laminate construction steel-reinforced fork jig that I made in my kitchen 3 years ago. My workshop mate Ryan's just bought a proper fork jig so perhaps if I ask nicely next time I can use that..

The bits 'n' bobs so far.. The top tube will have internal cable routing.

After brazing in the fork legs. The flux got a little tired and began to darken after I chased around the shorlelines with the flame, but I'm confident that I didn't overheat the joints as the steel didn't go red. It cleaned up nicely.

I found all this stuff down the back of the sofa..

Complete with Park stand clampability.

Nearly got this one in focus..

An adjustable parallel is used to shim up to the height of the seat tube just as it exits the BB shell. The base is a precision straight edge. I had this side of it clocked at work at less than 0.1mm error over 1 metre.

The screws lock the adjustable parallel at this height. I had to make sure the tube was sitting flat on the top of it.

Then I moved the parallel to the other end of the tube and insert it into the slot I cut to allow it to sit on the flat surface. I close the toggle clamp after adjusting its set screw and locknut to give the correct downward force and travel.

Another view

Detail of angle bracket with brazed reinforcements. I stuck some cushioning clear rubber, the type you use to protect bike frames from cable friction or chain rub, underneath the bracket to protect the flat surface. It's self-adhesive and stuck to the bracket.

I had just enough room to double-check along the top with my surface gauge.

Both ends matched for height.

I made these rectangular washers out of some 3mm stainless bar so they would sit in the gap and raise the nut above the flat surface, thus protecting it. I filed the edges off to leave them slightly rounded.

At the other end I made a double washer with 2 holes for the bracket bolts.

I brazed my fork crown to the steerer today.

I took this shot while filing away the excess steerer tube and silver.

I cleaned up the crown and filed the points to be crisp and sharp.

Next I mitred the seat tube with a half-round second cut file.

My tubing blocks came in handy.

Checking the mitre against the BB shell. The "ears" need to come down a bit.

View through the down tube socket. I've filed the points and the edges of the socket walls to sit at 90 degrees to the tube.

Now the track faces are nice and shiny. I've cleaned up the brass and started to shape the edges to more rounded chamfers since these pictures were taken.

I had to show off the Winter Viburnam.

I marked the dropout with a marker pen so that when I marked the required clearance around the nut and derailleur, my scribed lines would be easier to see.

I then scribed a line to round off the inside corner.

I had to file carefully in the vice to avoid nicking the other surfaces.

scribing detail.

Closer..

nearly there..

almost finished.

I tried to get a smooth curve.

Checking to see if it will pass - the nut I used here is quite large, over 19mm. I thought it would be best to check the fit with the "worst case scenario" size.

The 1st drive side dropout became a template for the non-driveside dropouts, and vice-versa, with flat plate against flat plate. I scribed a line tracing the corner.

the line is marked.

Marking up a batch to be filed.

Before (top) and after (bottom). I'll clean up the stray brass a little and try and remove that broken bolt in the rack mount. Never use a blunt tap.. I bought a much higher quality tap to finish all the other threads properly.

Filing in the vice to the template dropout.

Almost matching now.

Will she pass? Yes!

I filed the inside of the track ends flat and parallel, smoothing out any lumpy brass. I used a round file in the curve.

On a few of the dropouts I cheated and touched in a little brass from inside if there were any small gaps (come on, I am a newbie). This obviously had to be cleaned up with files too.

A flock of filed dropouts.

Tapping M5 threads for the rack & mudguard mounts.

Finished threads

After tapping all the threads with cutting oil in the drill press chuck, I got pretty grubby!

I then had to degrease, wash and dry the dropouts ready for brazing.

I dried them with paper towels after using detergent and warm water to remove the degreaser.

I sanded the mating faces so the brass would take as well as I hoped it would.

Pre-braze cleanup completed.

I took this opportunity to file off the marks from the waterjet cutting process, as it would be much more difficult after brazing.

More filing.

..It took a while..

I took a 2mm drill and cleaned out all the abrasive paper debris from the pin holes by hand.

Next, I fluxed up all the dropouts with Tenacity 125 flux, the same stuff they use in the autobrazers at work. I added some more after this photo was taken.

My NASA-grade Wilkinson FX497DBJ dropout brazing jig is set up in the vice. This hi-tech model allows all-round flame access.

I tacked the ends first to try and eliminate lifting of the track faces. This was about midnight.

Moving the flame around the dropout.

It was a little challenging to control the heat whilst looking for the brass to flow all the way through.

I moved the torch around underneath to try and spread the heat evenly.

My workshop-mate Ryan took these pictures. That's his torch and glasses too. Should've remembered that dust masks don't work with tinted glasses - some of your breath is channeled up around the sides of your nose and steams them up. At least in London in January it does.

It took some time to braze 12 of these..

..But I seemed to get better at it as I went along.

Nearly finished..

Filing the track slot flat and square after brazing.

I decided to get the dropouts shotblasted as the flux is not water soluble and there was a little blackening here and there.

Trial-fit to my road bike wheel.

I need to carefully file a new curve profile something like this so that the nut can pass the derailleur mount. A bit of weight loss won't hurt..

Great Great Uncle George

George and chum with bike folded on his back.

Early sketches.. will they work?

The design was simplified to be waterjet cut in the end, with 1mm faces abandoned.

Dan helped me with CAD. A nice guy.

Next I got the parts 3D printed in plastic.

It gave me a clearer picture of what I would get.

I got 10 pairs waterjet cut, with 20 accompanying track end face "extrusions". 9 pairs to ruin? and possibly 1 pair to realise I measured incorrectly? We'll find out..

Drilling the pinholes using the drilling guide jig.

The drill press chuck wouldn't go down to 2mm so I had to add this second chuck.

John made me this neat little pin holder. 4mm lengths can be cut cleanly with a junior hacksaw, and filed if necessary.

A great way to recycle knackered old 2mm spokes. You can hold it in a vice.

A perfect little pin is made.

Jigging up a dropout plate. The hex key locks it in place.

Holes are drilled to about 2mm with the drilling guide holes in the jig. I marked the inboard sides with an X to avoid mistakes.

Then the track end "faces" are drilled to match. They will decrease the OLN by 5mm per side to accept a track hub.

In the jig.

The two parts can now be lined up for brazing.

Pins in place.

Bobs yer Muvva's Bruvva.

One pair done..

I knew those old G-clamps would come in handy one day..

I had to line up the dropout very carefully and lock the table.

I turned the chuck by hand with the key in the chuck for added leverage. I was ably assisted by my wonderful girlfriend applying steady light pressure on the drill press handle.

After backing out of the threads. I used plenty of cutting oil.

Looks like I cut these threads squarely.