About Me

My photo
Back in my hometown of Jonesboro., Arkansas, United States
My name is Dimitri Harris and I have been building frames for over 9 years now. I learned the basics after spending two weeks with Koichi Yamaguchi. He is one of the most interesting people I have ever met and I am thankful to have worked with him. Since then I have just been building one frame after another and learning as much as possible along the way. I build steel fillet-brazed frames that go by the name of MEECH, which is an old nickname that I have had since I was a kid. I build mostly cyclocross frames because I love their versatility however I also do road,single-speed, and mountain bikes as well. Custom frames start around $1400. All the frames are handmade by me here in Jonesboro, Arkansas. I am insured and guarantee all of my work so if you are in the market for a custom steel frame I would be glad to build it for you. I am also building frames from carbon fiber so if you would like to ride a prototype frame give me a shout. Thanks for stopping by. You can email me at meech151@hotmail.com or call (870)897-6703 or visit www.meechcustombicycles.com Thanks.

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Ooooh, Whats That?

One of my short term goals is to build a carbon fiber frame so whenever I am not working on someone else's frame I play around with carbon to learn a little about it.  I have very little experience with it so I can't offer much advice but I can tell you with confidence that you don't want to breath a lot of this stuff, I don't want to breath any of it.  As fun as it is to make stuff with carbon fiber, wet layup can be very messy and sanding the cured parts is even worse.  Get yourself a good breathing mask and wear long sleeve shirts and pants unless your a glutton for punishment.  This is just some PVC pipe to practice wrapping my joints before I start using the expensive stuff.  I bonded them together with  some ScotchWeld DP420 and then mixed up a little batch with some cut-up carbon tow to make a thick paste.  Having a good fillet at the tube juncture will help the carbon patches lay better. I don't think those little craters in the fillet are a total deal breaker because they will be filled when the layered carbon is laid down, however they won't be on the next parts because I will pack it tighter. I am fixing to order a vacuum pump so that I can learn to vac-bag the layups for a stronger part.  I am not breaking any new ground here, there are plenty of people out there who could teach classes about this stuff, but its fun experimenting with something you know nothing about.  I never paid attention in Science class, all I did was dream about riding motocross.  Isn't that the way its supposed to be, use your body when your young and strong and after your 40 you can start to use your brain. Thats how I chose to do it anyway.  Just think, LOOK was making bicycles with this stuff 30 years ago.   Anyway, I'll  post some more photos  as I go along and maybe sometime this spring I will have something rideable.  I doubt anything will ever ride as smooth as steel but as the Pixies once wrote, 
"ITS EDUCATIONAL".  



Posted by at

2 comments:

  1. UnknownFebruary 21, 2011 at 6:26 PM

    Dimitri, I too am interesting in getting to a carbon build. I am starting out small at first. I had Carl at Edge (Enve now) make some tubes to my specs and I am using steel lugs. Its going to be sweet, I think. Let me turn you on to a blog that I follow that is related to what you are looking at doing. http://back40bicycleworks.blogspot.com/

    good luck, Wil

    ReplyDelete
  2. MEECHFebruary 23, 2011 at 12:14 PM

    Yeah, I have checked his blog out before, its a good one. I have done one carbon tubed frame where I made a steel fillet-brazed frame and just cut it up and inserted carbon tubes from Carl. The customer said it road sweetly. Stay in touch and send some photos of you frame. Chao.

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)