Brazed Fork #2

I finished brazing the fork for Monty yesterday. I seem to always forget my camera when really picturesque things are happening, and this was one of those times. But I do have some pictures as it come out.

The last fork I made ended up about 5mm out of centre, and I had to cold set the fork blades to one side to get the wheel to sit perfectly straight in the fork. This time instead of brazing the fork fully in the jig, I just tacked it, then aligned with a true wheel, and then brazed it fully in the vise. Luckily it required no cold-setting at all this time, and came out perfectly straight.

The brazing itself went reasonably well. It's a slightly tricky joint to braze, since you don't have an exit point to dump excess silver. The shore lines came out pretty well, but are a bit "fulsome" in spots. The Nervex crown also added some difficulty, since none of the points rested very well against the blades. A lot of tapping with the brass hammer eventually settled this problem. Here's one of the nicer shorelines.

Incredibly, after all the filing I've already done on the crown, the brazing process revealed that I still have a lot left. Notice in this photo both how thick the crown is, and how the angle doesn't match the line of the blade. I'll file it to be thinner and in line.

Here's the back of the socket, where the same needs to be done.

I'm also thinking of using some Mafac Competitions I have in my closet, instead of the Universals. I'm tempted mostly by the brass bushings and the fact that I already have all the hardware—but we'll see.