Next, I worked on the chainstays. This was the most difficult part of the building process and is something I will avoid on the next bike. The first step in this part of the construction was removing the stubs of the chainstay tubes from the bottom bracket. The plan was to simply heat the bottom bracket lugs and remove the tubes. In the process, I managed to tear the tubes into several pieces and crack the bottom bracket lug. I had to resort to cutting each tube lengthwise inside the lug and heating and removing each piece. On several really stubborn pieces, I had to grind them out and shape the lug. What a pain!

Next, I turned my attention to the rear end of the chainstays. Because I liked the taper of the chainstays on the donor bike, I decided to braze them onto the ends of the new chainstay tubes. Now that I have done this once, I can say that I probably will not do it again! The first step here was to unbraze the chainstay tubes from the rear dropouts. Then I cut both of the chainstays from the donor bike to the same length. Then I brazed the lugs back in place tilted upwards 45 degrees. This tilting of the lug was to provide clearance on the seatstays when they are placed in their new position.

On the open end of each modified chainstay tube, I attached a 4 foot length of tubing to create the new long chainstays required. To strengthen the butt joint, I inserted a simple split sleeve made from a piece of spare tubing before brazing. Once the tubes are brazed together and everything looks straight and correct, then cut both chainstays to the same length. Were I building a second bike of the same design, I would extend the new tubes all of the way from the bottom bracket to the rear dropouts.

Now that I have two extra long chainstays created, it’s time to put them in place. I set up my jig so both tubes were seated in the bottom bracket lugs and the dropouts were straight up and down. By the way, at this point, the chainstays are about a foot apart and 6-8 inches to high. This is ok because I will be bending them into place after they have been brazed in place in the bottom bracket. Once I was happy with the alignment of the chainstays and dropouts, I brazed them into the bottom bracket.