Kirk Frameworks

[Hilltopperny]

My 853 Pro Terraplane is my favorite bike and those Gothic fillets are out of this world! Whoever is lucky enough to grab one of these will be in for a treat.

Sent from my SM-S127DL using Tapatalk

[AngryScientist]

Speaking of lovely lugs...

Here are some blast from the past yellow yumminess.

Dave - Which lugs were these? I don't recall seeing them anywhere else with the raised center ridge? Beautiful work here.

[NHAero]

Originally Posted by David Kirk

Good question - From the get-go I knew I wanted this bike to have color. Even before I knew it would be gothic fillets I knew it would be JB's Legnano Green. Once I landed on the idea of the Gothic Fillets I knew it would be steel and not stainless. This is due to the differences between working with steel/brass fillets and stainless/silver fillets.

With brass fillets you have a wide-ish temperature range in which you can work the fillet and add material precisely where you want it. The brass filler material goes from a hard solid, to a soft solid, to a thick liquid, to a thinner liquid...and finally to a runny liquid. So you can use the temperature to control the shape of the fillet with little risk you'll end up with a blob of molten metal on your shoe (or in my case my "workinstocks").

Silver is a completely different animal. It doesn't go directly from a solid to runny liquid but it's pretty close. It's much harder to work with and simple fillet shapes work best. Getting the silver to stand up into the Gothic Fillet shape could end up with lots of spendy silver filler on the floor.

So...as a pragmatic matter it's best that the Gothic shape be done with brass. And since I wanted them to be painted anyway using steel w/brass fillets was the best way to go.

Does that make sense?

dave

Totally makes sense, thanks for the insights!

[PaMtbRider]

Congrats on 20 years Dave. The bikes you have made for Roxann and I still put a smile on our faces every time we ride them.

[NHAero]

Another coupla questions, asking for a friend...

- Do you ever mix steels such that the frame and fork are mostly painted, but the chainstays and lower half of the terraplane stays are therefore unpainted stainless rather than the 853 or whichever alloy steel makes up most of the frameset? Or is it that, once a portion of the frame is unpainted stainless, the whole frameset is stainless even if mostly painted?

- Is there a fork crown that retains the smooth flowing lines achieved with the fillets, similar to (dare I say this?) a carbon fork, but achieved with a steel fork?

Thank you

[David Kirk]

Those lugs are/were made by the casting house Long Shen and I think they called them "arrowheads". I removed a lot of extra points and doo-dads from them to give them a long lean look. I used them because I loved the web.

They only made them in old school sizes (1" top tube) and I considered having some made for larger tubes but the expense was not worth it for my business.

They are cool and fun to build with once you cut all the extra poo off them!


dave

Originally Posted by AngryScientist

Speaking of lovely lugs...

Here are some blast from the past yellow yumminess.

Dave - Which lugs were these? I don't recall seeing them anywhere else with the raised center ridge? Beautiful work here.

[David Kirk]

Thanks for the questions....here's some responses for you -

- I do occasionally make bikes that are partially stainless so that those stainless areas can be left unpainted. Typically it would mimic the look of old school chromed chainstays and fork blades. Is that what you were aksing?

- There are some crowns available that go down into the blade (instead of the blades slipping into the crown) and they can have a seamless look. However the good ones out there don't allow for anything over a 25 mm tire and that just doesn't work in today's market so I almost never use them. But if you wanted a super smooth fork and narrow tires that can be accommodated no problem.

I hope that helps.

dave

Originally Posted by NHAero

Another coupla questions, asking for a friend...

- Do you ever mix steels such that the frame and fork are mostly painted, but the chainstays and lower half of the terraplane stays are therefore unpainted stainless rather than the 853 or whichever alloy steel makes up most of the frameset? Or is it that, once a portion of the frame is unpainted stainless, the whole frameset is stainless even if mostly painted?

- Is there a fork crown that retains the smooth flowing lines achieved with the fillets, similar to (dare I say this?) a carbon fork, but achieved with a steel fork?

Thank you

[NHAero]

Originally Posted by David Kirk

Thanks for the questions....here's some responses for you -

- I do occasionally make bikes that are partially stainless so that those stainless areas can be left unpainted. Typically it would mimic the look of old school chromed chainstays and fork blades. Is that what you were aksing?

- There are some crowns available that go down into the blade (instead of the blades slipping into the crown) and they can have a seamless look. However the good ones out there don't allow for anything over a 25 mm tire and that just doesn't work in today's market so I almost never use them. But if you wanted a super smooth fork and narrow tires that can be accommodated no problem.

I hope that helps.

dave

Just what I wanted to learn, thank you very much. When new, my Bob Jackson had half chrome stays and fork blades. They looked great but were lost in one of the repaints.

[madsciencenow]

Congrats on 20 years, Dave! Love the bikes you’ve built me!! Are the anniversary slots gone or still have some available?

[David Kirk]

Originally Posted by madsciencenow

Congrats on 20 years, Dave! Love the bikes you’ve built me!! Are the anniversary slots gone or still have some available?

Thank you. It's fun hearing that you enjoy the bikes I built for you. They have but one job and that is to make the owner smile so if that's happening I think we're good.

At this point 4 of the 5 spots are confirmed and the last one should be firmed up very soon.


dave

[GParkes]

Originally Posted by Hilltopperny

My 853 Pro Terraplane is my favorite bike and those Gothic fillets are out of this world! Whoever is lucky enough to grab one of these will be in for a treat.

Sent from my SM-S127DL using Tapatalk

I'm crying right now..................

[pdonk]

Originally Posted by GParkes

I'm crying right now..................

Tears of joy I hope, not tears that you missed out on this opportunity.

[David Kirk]

I was thinking of the wonderful woman in this story just the other day and here today it popped up on my Facebook memories from years ago...and this happening at the time of Juneteenth was too much to ignore so I share it here in the spirit of the Juneteenth holiday.

dave

______________________________


Welcome to Niceville –

I left my childhood home of Rome, New York the day after high school graduation and took a road trip with my friend Pat to Florida to meet girls and spend time on the beach. I did end up meeting a girl so when vacation was over I went back to NY and told my parents I was leaving. Just a few days later I packed everything I owned into my tiny pickup truck and moved to Niceville, Florida. Yep…the town is called Niceville. I could not make that up. I was 17 years old, tall, underweight, wearing skateboard shorts and Vans skate shoes and my hair was very long and I was completely on my own with zero supervision or guidance and almost no money.

Niceville is up in the Florida panhandle and had a population of about 4000 people at the time. The town was a support community for Eglin Air Force base and was mostly a grouping of fast food places, dry cleaners and mom-and-pop stores whose customers were almost all in uniform. I rented a $65/month mobile home without heat or AC but plenty of cockroaches. I was a Yankee alone in the Deep South. I enrolled in school at Okaloosa-Walton Junior College (again...I couldn’t make this up) majoring in fine art and despite my class schedule I had way too much time on my otherwise unemployed hands. So I rode my bike all day, everyday, scouting out first the main roads and then moving on to the back roads that left town and ventured out into plantation land. It was while “wasting” my time on these bike rides that I had two very different, and at the same time very memorable, experiences that have stayed with me for decades.

One hot fall morning I got on my BMX cruiser and I started riding without a plan on the back roads around Niceville. Most of the roads were paved as they left town and in time the pavement gave way to a gritty hard red clay surface. The further one went the narrower the roads got. Typically these roads would serve a plantation of fruit trees or tobacco with few homes but lots of shady palmetto trees. Usually I’d get the feeling that I’d gone far enough and I’d turn around satisfied that I’d seen all I needed to see. This morning I was riding on a paved road that turned to red clay and then got even more narrow than usual. Finally it made a hard right around a grove of tightly spaced trees and it became obvious that the road was not a road but instead a driveway that ended at a shotgun shack.

Despite it being late morning it was dark under the canopy of trees and it took my eyes a few moments to adjust. I stopped and sat on the bike trying to figure out where I was and if I needed to turn around or not. It was then I heard a noise – metallic and mechanical. It was the sound of a shotgun being cocked. I looked at the porch and nearly hidden was an old man, white, tired looking, sitting in a rocking chair, barrel of the gun resting on the railing and pointed directly at me. I froze. He made eye contact with me…I sat frozen…motionless and still on my bike, wearing leopard skin skate shorts and no shirt. After a long moment the man spoke in a rough voice – “Go back to where you came from boy.” He was not joking. I lowered my eyes and tried to look non-threatening and I said “yessir.” I slowly turned and rode around the corner back onto what had seemed like a dirt road just moments ago. Heart pounding, flush, scared, I slowly made the corner and then sprinted like mad away from that place. This was my first welcome to Niceville.

Some weeks later I had fallen into a routine of sorts. Sundays were special. I was not then, nor am I now, a religious person but I liked to ride my bike away from the trailer park down past the strip mall with its now quiet bars. I would ride between a shop and a long out of business gas station that had the remnants of signs on the backside of the building over what must have been water fountains. The signs said “white” and “colored”. I would make a left toward the Gulf of Mexico. Not far away there was a Baptist Church whose parishioners were 100% black and the singing coming from that church was like nothing this white Yankee had ever heard. It was strong and proud and passionate…the singers were part of something larger and I was alone. It was beautiful and magnetic. The first few weeks I would leave just as the flock started to leave the church dressed in their Sunday best. I felt very self-conscious watching them. But after a time I felt more at ease and I’d watch the men and women in their big hats file out of the white building looking energized. Happy. I sat off the side on my bike and tried to look like I wasn’t watching which made sense at the time but seems so very silly now.

One Sunday I watched them head out, heads held high, and one woman looked right at me. She was tall and round and proud with a very white smile and her skin was very, very black. She wore a pale yellow dress and a huge floppy hat. She was beautiful. She looked into my eyes and I felt caught in an act of voyeurism. I felt shame come over me. I had intruded. She then pointed at me and I felt the urge to flee but her look said I shouldn’t. She smiled and motioned with a curved finger to come to her. I didn’t move for a second and she gave me a “don’t keep me waiting” look so I lay the bike down and walked my tall, skinny and white self over to her. She said, “Honey, you look like you could use a hug” in a wonderful southern tone and she reached out and pulled me to her and she wrapped her big arms around me. She smelled like flowers. She hugged me long and hard and told me everything was going to be OK. I fought back tears. It felt so good. She released me and smiled up at me and said, “see you next Sunday” and walked over to her waiting and confused family.

I did see her again the next Sunday. I would not have missed it for the world. She came out of church wearing white and she waved to me before heading off with her family. This was my second welcome to Niceville.

These two experiences left deep impressions on me. The old white guy who seemed so scared that he was ready to kill me to defend himself and the black woman, who had more then enough reasons to hate a young white man, opening her arms for me. I wish I could make sense of this but even after nearly 40 years it’s as much a mystery as it was then. I hope life treated these two Niceville residents well.

[ERK55]

Dave thanks much for sharing that story.

[ERK55]

By the way, how long did you end up spending in Niceville?