RECYCLED RECUMBENTS!!! 
RECYCLED RECUMBENTS!!!
THE REAR TRIANGLE BENDING JIG
A problem I and some other builders have discussed is bending/re-forming the rear triangle for this bike. I had been doing it by hand for years, and the advice earlier in this series suggested that you do that as well - do it twice and pick the one you like best for the finished bike!
Two other people are using conduit benders to get nice results. I haven't achieved that yet. The 'original' TE Clone text suggests unbrazing the seat stays at the rear dropouts and simply folding them down. I've made a mess of that too, and worry about strength at that joint.
The by-hand-with-a-torch method I have used does have faults - you can bend it crooked, you can heat unevenly, the dropouts can shift alignment, the stays can crimp or crack, etc. I think I get about one in three, really, that I like when bending by hand. And I do practice.
The jig below just did a dozen rear triangles very handily - only two are frame rejects.
Start with a rear hub - this one is crudely clipped out of a stray scrap wheel.
I have brazed
a small tube onto and perpendicular to the hub, and another, of 1 1/2"
conduit, perpendicular to that about 4" away - this latter is parallel,
obviously, to the axle.
The cure for rear dropouts altering alignment is to mount a hub IN the dropouts while you heat and bend. This jig does that, and offers a surface to use while bending as well. Here is a rear triangle:
And here 
we
have mounted this jigged hub - almost ready to bend.
One last bit - There is variance in the angle for different triangles, and you want the 1 1/2" conduit tight against the stay to be bent. I put a flat tab of steel on the cross-tube of the jig, this to allow the placement of a washer, a scrap, whatever it takes to adjust the jig on the tabletop properly. Like this:
Crude, but it works. Then heat evenly, moving a torch from one stay to the other until you can easily push down the seat stays.
Here it is, finished as bent onto the jig:
And here it is alone, no kinks, nice and straight, and 135 mm across for the eventual rear wheel!
A lot of paint to clean off, however.......
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