Progress report!

Workshop
The grade is prepped for an 8 x 14 slab. We dug it extra deep to bury all the field stones and random scraps that had accumulated in a pile over the years. Next, I ordered one cubic yard of “A” gravel (small gravel with sand) delivered to the house. Since it’s been a super busy time with my work, Sarah did all the grunt work to bring the gravel in and level it off. We’ve let it set for the past few days, and it’s poured rain and been pretty chilly lately, so not much progress.

Pouring the slab will be a big-ish deal. To do so, we have to:

• Level out the gravel grade
• Put down vapour barrier (the shed will be insulated)
• Put down 4 4×8 sheets of foam insulation
• build a perfectly square 8×14 form
• lay down 4 4×8 sheets of steel mesh in the concrete as it gets poured.

At this square footage, it becomes slightly insane to mix it all yourself (I calculated needing around 90 bags of pre-mix for the job. Ugh.) So we’re going to see if a truck can come and hang out in the driveway while we frantically wheelbarrow the concrete back and forth.

Tooling
I bought an Anvil fork fixture and seatstay mitring fixture from a friendly builder in the states. I mainly wanted the fork fixture, but the SS fixture could come in handy. My torch, regulators, tips and hoses all arrived a few weeks ago. And I’m mere inches away from jumping on a Fattic frame fixture. It’s not as flashy as the Anvil tooling, but it’s a world-class fixture with decades and decades of engineering thought buried inside.

Bike #1 Status
I’ve finished the design array for painting the bike, and am now checking around for pricing. Noah at Velocolour in Toronto does fabulous work, but I’m going to check out some local leads in the next few days. I’m going to be building it up with an array of parts that might make some purists squirm: Campy Veloce shifters with mostly Shimano 105 components. And in a peaceful few hours within the turbulence of a sappingly busy life, I hand-built my wheels last week – 105 hubs with Mavic A119 rims. I love building wheels, I find it tremendously relaxing.

Onwards!