It is a frame!

The frame is now structurally complete. I have finally bonded the rear stays into place. As winter has taken its grip I had to wait until there was a warmer day, over ten degrees in order for the epoxy to work properly. But in the end the day cooled off much faster than I had hoped and I ended up dashing into the house and digging out an electric heater from the loft in order to keep the garage warm. I didnt fancy keeping the heater on all night so after a couple of hours the epoxy had gone off enough for me to move the frame (carefully) into the house. By the morning it was cured.

Before i mixed up the epoxy, I did a final dry assembly to check wheel alignment and that everything still fitted, and made some last minute trims and tweaks. One of the main things I did was to drill lots of very shallow holes and rough up the contacts surfaces on the parts to be bonded. I also had to abraid the insides of the metal tubing on the drop outs.

Final dry run of rear stay positions.

The frame in one piece at last.

Video of the frame after the bonding.

This is a big step forward. There is still a lot of sanding and now that i see it all together there are elements of the frame shape that I will refine. The main observation is that I want to see more of the ply contours and that can only be achieved by working more curves into the shape. There are plenty of places to do this and I will just do it as I go, I feel like it needs to be an organic process. i just need to be careful as there is absolutely no undo option.

Right now, this frame is structurally ready to ride, from here on in it is all aesthetics. I feel like I should be getting the varnish ready.