This is interesting. Running a 220V3P Bridgeport mill from a 120V1P power source. Are you interested?! Industrial spaces in the United States will have 480V 3-phase power running to them from the utility company. This might be stepped down (delta transformer) to 240V or 208V in 3-phases. In our homes (US) we will generally have … Read more
The student becomes the master. I tease Ronen with this Star Wars scene. He’s very much a powerful Jedi. The Interview: http://www.peterverdone.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/2025-02-18-Ronen-Sarig_02.mp3 I met Ronen in about 2013. He was young then. I was younger then. In Fairfax Cyclery and in the parking lot we connected. This kid was different. His early fast time on … Read more
I got caught up in a machine of my own making. A machine built to catch me exactly as it did. This is my Accountability Mechanism. It swallowed me whole, right after my previous post on handlebars. Accountability Mechanisms I thought that I had completed the work required on the handlebar component of the new … Read more
There are a few options for holding workpieces and tooling down to fixturing weld tables. I’m going to skip the most common types. Since I’m trying to build out precise tooling in this ecosystem, there a few ways of doing this that I’ve realized that solve in quite a few scenarios. The first step in … Read more
I was contacted by a student in my department (Physics & Astronomy) the other day. To satisfy a course requirement, he needed to interview someone from the department to get advice on his path through school and beyond. He probably asked the wrong person. I asked him if I could record the interview for my … Read more
I was doing a repairs on my friend Justin’s Specialized Epic carbon fiber hardtail frame this week. Justin is fast and knows how to play rough. Somehow he broke the drive side chain stay in two places. It was hanging on by threads. Fuck it. Fix it up and get it back out for more … Read more
The other day, I was in a discussion with a student that was running some queries on my site. He told me that since starting my blog in 2010, I’ve posted, on average, once a week, every week. In blog land, that ultra marathon world cup performance. It’s been a while since my last post. … Read more
This is a bit of a continuation of a past post about the new mathematical considerations that the newer all-road/gravel suspension forks have in calculating bike geometry. Because the sliders are set at an angle to the steerer (and thus, the head tube), calculating the bike geometry at a given location in the fork travel … Read more
Within the 2024 PVD Samantha Frame Fixture, I designed a way to calibrate the crank shell and axle towers. The tower axis needs to be orthogonal to the plane that lays out the frame over the fixture table. While pretty important for the crank shell, it’s crucial for the rear axle axis. How do we … Read more
Like many, I have a small problem with the Rhino Cart in my shop. I love the BuildPro system and Rhyno Cart is a really good product. The issue is the flatness of the surface, specifically, I have a low drop in the middle of the raster table. I’ve known since the Rhino Cart showed … Read more
I have a concept that I call ‘accountability mechanisms’. It’s not too different from what others talk about. These are tools that keep me working hard and in good ways without having to ‘pay’ someone to do that. An extrinsic motivator; a teacher, trainer, or editor, would (hopefully) do the same thing but those come … Read more
Back on November 2, 2023, Transition bikes dropped their new hardtail bike, the TransAM. This is a bike carrying a name that they’ve used for hardtail models many times in the past. While I try to keep up with comments on some of the more interesting products that come onto the market, I just didn’t … Read more
I’m probably known best these days for my hardtail mountain and all-road bikes. What some may not know is that I have a long history riding and tuning suspension bikes and sport motorcycle. I’ve had big enduro bikes and downhill bikes. I’ve changed shims, fluid, and springs to alter the performance of these systems. This … Read more
This is a project that I had been working on last year. It’s a fixturable sine bar for use on fixturable fabrication tables. Sadly, I got distracted before finishing it but it might be at some point. For that reason, I delayed posting on it until now. With a good design and an hour at … Read more
There’s a funny thing in the world of fixturing. Most of the pin holes on the smaller side of the range for metalworking rasters are 5/8″ or 16mm. In the wood working world, they use 3/4″. This is frustrating as there are some nice products that would work fine for some light duty work. So, … Read more
I’ve discussed (2) some of the particularities in additive metal manufactured parts in my bikes and skateboard designs. It’s strange stuff. Since it isn’t (in a macro sense) a uniform homogeneous crystalline structure, it has some strange failure properties. It’s globular. I think of it like Styrofoam. It’s quite stiff and strong but when it … Read more
In a way, one of the nice things about additive manufacturing is the long wait to get the parts. We don’t really like that wait but it’s a fact and hard to change. It takes between 20 and 30 days to get my parts from the printer from when I send off the models. Since … Read more
I started this project about a year ago, almost to the week. It was going to be a big undertaking for me as I haven’t done a lot of this kind of work, or at least properly. I’m happy to learn new things but it can take me a bit of effort and time to … Read more
I design and produce quite a few things as a hobby. Bicycles, motorcycles, & skateboards and the details that surround them. I do other projects but the short list is probably the most elegant way to describe it. I could get even more discrete when I say ’tilt steer vehicles’, but that requires more explanation … Read more
For those familiar with my work, it’s known that I try to push my models hard in the design of my bikes and the parts that go onto them. Because of that, equation driven construction geometry for entire bikes and groupings of parts turn into hundreds of parameters and equations for any given configuration and … Read more
I just recently got the chance, again, to post microscope images of some failed handlebars. While I’m not into having failures, it’s nice to use my neat setup microscope. Images like the ones that I took are extremely difficult to obtain. Holding a handlebar (or portion of a handlebar) the long way, rigidly, under the … Read more
Careful readers of my blog will know about the ‘bean can’. It’s a simple enough device that protects the delicate top tube of a bicycle frame when proper hand grip placement may produce damage in a crash. When everything goes ass over tea kettle, the front end swings around wildly, looking for something to stop … Read more
I think it was 1990 when I built my first set of bicycle wheels. I was a young man of 20, working at Fat City Cycles in Olive Square in Somerville, Massachusetts. We manufactured very fancy bicycles there. On the side, I had just constructed a fixed gear road frame for use getting around Boston … Read more
I develop a lot of equations for use in my designs. Math is behind most of what I make. Generally, I’m using MS Excel while going through the math and drawings to arrive at the system that I want to use. That gets added to master spreadsheets along with all my other calculations that I’ve … Read more
This is the holy grail of the plate style fixtures and is the third iteration of a bicycle fabrication fixture that has developed from modern bicycle design principles. The 2020 Cyberdyne System fixture changed everything. By building a fixture on a breadboard surface, precise fabrication could be done with a lesser investment in tooling. The … Read more
This is a another diversion within the CNC controller box project. Another opportunity to learn things that I’ve never bothered to in the past. The more time I spend solving these practical issues the more it makes sense and the pieces start fitting together. Electricity is hard. For my CNC controller project, I have to … Read more
This is something interesting that came up in the shop yesterday. My friend, Tim Murko, has been working with wood in recent years. He’s been doing various furniture and wall art types of things. For a while, he was content with just wood and fasteners (along with some fun electronics as Tim is an electrical … Read more
I’ve made it clear that I’m no electronics expert. This project is challenging my ability to learn at a later stage of life. Still, I’m getting used to all of it and it’s even getting fun. In my research on the CNC control box project, much confusion was made in the vague descriptions of the … Read more
In the last few years I’ve been needing real microscopy in my home shop. Fiber laser engraving, electronics projects, and analyzing 3D printing failures prompts this. There’s seeing and then there is really seeing. I feel foolish that it took this long. Had I known how much of a difference 90x magnification would make in … Read more
