In my never ending quest to continue to eating dinner, I, actually “we” (with the help of J. Lockwood at Bitter Gravity)  moved my blog over the the URL I have been sitting on for a while so people could find it.  I also added a Frank the Welder facebook page.

It seems odd that some folks have trouble finding contact info for “FTW”  when it seems that someone you know must know me. Right?   I may have fixed your go-cart when you were a kid.  I sure remember Ernie.

Ernie isn’t his real name. He was born with a lot of problems, so many that his parents dropped him at the curb and peeled out.  He changed his name to Ernie to honor the folks that adopted him and took care of him as best they could.

His knee has been getting worse lately. His darn leg is 1-1/2″ short because of that knee just grinding itself to pieces.  Ernie has to walk all day because it hurts less while walking.  But that is making the damage worse.  I guess you walk till you can’t bare it and hammer the booze till you pass out.  He keeps his hair combed and his clothing clean and pressed and wears his high school ring with pride.  I can see where he started isn’t far from where he was yesterday when I caught up to him.   He is afraid to get surgery even though someone offered it to him. He can imagine things being worse.

I welded up his walker yesterday.  I would have done it sooner but the guy is hard to find.  He said “you really made my goddamn day” so it was really worth it.  Honestly, I got more out of it than he did.

I am working on FB-10′s, a certain reproduction bike, fixing a mistake I made and fixing mistakes other folks made this week.  The damp weather has been causing me to stare out the door into the clouds a bit when I pass by the door (it’s usually open) .

So this time of year is pretty busy and I thank you folks for all the business.  I will put up some random pics here and see if that part works.

I like the new Header.. I think it makes the room bigger.

I am sorry I have been so selfish with my time lately. I recently built two really nice aluminum frames over the span of a week after decelerating from the massive rush of getting my own new bike. The one I called “bondo buggy” ?

I got it put together and did the basic adjustments. It is very fast. I made it quite a bit longer than my last bike with the idea of moving my hand positions forward one “notch” since I wasn’t using the tops at all.
It is stiffer than my steel bike but the new fork is carbon. Explain that please.

I weighed it on a scale that was way too big for the job (5000 cap.) . It was 15 lbs.

Here is a sneak peak

On an interesting (to me LOL) side note, while riding up Pleasant valley road yesterday I followed a John Deere shit spreader for a mile or two. Cool huh!

I met with Wade and Antonio yesterday and I am on board with these guys. Stay tuned..

I always feel a lot better after a good ride. Though winter wasn’t much to speak of, I still missed swingin’ a leg over and blasting out some miles.

One of the familiar sights along the this time of year is the maple syrup operations that take place out in the woods. As you may well know, maple syrup (the real stuff) is made from tree sap that is collected and boiled down to make the sticky, tasty substance we call sugar. The stand of trees is a “sugar bush” and a boiling house is a sugar shack. People go “sugaring” for several days at a time 24 hours a day.

The sap starts running as soon as the day time temps hit the 40′s and will run as long as it gets cold at night. It starts out “light fancy” (what your kids would like) and goes to light amber, medium amber, dark amber and finally B grade. B grade is pure maple flavor with less sweetness.

Maple syrup has some wonderful properties. It can sterilize and help heal wounds and just 1/2 teaspoon in a glass of milk will give you “sweet” dreams and help you sleep soundly.

You can make syrup from other trees such as birch. We have several maple trees. The oldest is a “lone wolf” which has several odd branches going in all directions. I am not sure why these trees look so different. Perhaps the prolific growth is a survival technique.

I finished an aluminum road racing frame today. We found a few pair of double tapered seat stays and used the first pair on this frame. I really like working with them. They are 1mm thick (thin) wall and are 11mm at each end and around 18mm in the center where the bridge is.

It was sorta hard welding 1mm wall aluminum tubes. I didn’t mind.

I won’t have pics of this one till next week some time. Have a nice week!