Custom steel fork builder recommendation

[oldpotatoe]

Originally Posted by skiezo

They do exist. A friend had one built a few years ago but not sure by whom. He has since passed away tho. It was a steel fork with a carbon steer tube epoxied in. If I remember it weighed about 560 grams.
.

Hmm, never knew that, never seen one. Seems like a lot of work($$?) for some weight savings and possibility of 'glue' coming apart..Not a great place for a failure..

[mnoble485]

I got the itch for a steel fork a few years ago for my Hampsten. Natural choice was to call Steve. Straight leg fork delivered and the Enve has been gathering dust since.

Mike

[choke]

Originally Posted by mnoble485

I got the itch for a steel fork a few years ago for my Hampsten. Natural choice was to call Steve. Straight leg fork delivered and the Enve has been gathering dust since.

Mike

Hampco will build them for other bikes too....I asked Steve about it recently.

[Doug Fattic]

If you want to change out your boring bicycle tire for the comfort and stability of a car tire, you will need a new fork and I'm your guy to build one for you! The Tire Rack in South Bend, Indiana wanted to advertise the advantages of a snow/winter tire over a multi-session tire by putting car tires on a pedal trike and riding it in an ice rink. It makes for a pretty impressive demonstration because the trike with normal tires slips and slides all over the ice while the one winter specific tires grips much better.

This is the fork I built for them this week. Bob on the right is a graduate of Notre Dame and is the Tire Rack's engineer. He took my bicycle frame building class over 25 years ago. The other guy is his boss. Once I finish another fork they are going to rent the hockey rink at NDU to video how different these tires work on ice.

[AngryScientist]

that's really neat Doug!

[pbarry]

Doug, that is awesome! What’s the biggest tire that will fit?

[Doug Fattic]

Originally Posted by pbarry

Doug, What’s the biggest tire that will fit?

Bob the engineer asked me to make the distance from the center of the wheel axle to the bottom of the "fork crown" to be 12.5". That provided an inch of clearance with the wheel/tire they brought as an example. They didn't want to disturb the geometry of the pedal trike much. They are obviously having fun with this project. However it was a pretty effective demonstration when they were slip sliding around pedaling on ice with normal tires and had much better grip and control with winter tires.

[AngryScientist]

i hope they let you take a turn doug.

tirerack really seems to be a model for what online business should be. they actually do testing, have their own fact based reviews and customer service from my perspective has always been top notch. I've been a customer for years.

[Doug Fattic]

On the subject of making forks, here is another interesting fork project (at least to me) we are doing making bicycles for pastors that live in the eastern part of Ukraine where getting around is difficult because of the war like conditions with Russia. To make the forks in a cost effective way, we designed laser cut twin plate fork crowns to be used with less expensive round fork blades. I’ve always liked twin plate fork crowns. My ’69 Hetchins and ’72 Italian Masi both have them. Actually making them turned out to be more complicated then I anticipated. The plates themselves have to be brazed so they are the right distance apart and not twisted on each other and at an exact right angle to the steerer. This was a challenge to do efficiently without a lot of fiddling. Eventually I made a rather complicated fixture to braze them in a time efficient manor. One of my framebuilding class students Nolan helped with the design of this fixture. More about him later. Because we had access to laser cutting we also thought it might be wise to put little stainless steel crosses on the top of the crowns that might make a thief think twice before stealing it. Well that is the hope anyway.

Before I was a full time bicycle framebuilder/painter/teacher, I was a high school teacher. It is with that background that years ago I set up a plan to pass on framebuilding knowledge to those that want to learn the trade themselves. After they take a 3-week class, they have the opportunity to spend a few months in Ukraine brazing these transportation frames together. The repetition on fairly heavy-duty materials refines their brazing skills.

My student Nolan was a pilot before he got cancer at age 34. Bicycling was part of his recovery plan. He really got into it and wanted to make framebuilding a career since he could no longer pilot. It was obvious to him that the best way to achieve that goal was with my program. He got a good start but didn’t get too far before he lost his battle to cancer. A small part of his legacy lives in the twin plate fork crown making fixture.

[bikenow]

Hunter cycles makes some really nice forks aesthetically, I've never ridden with one though. Image from Bike Rumor