A eureka moment in the middle of the night meant I think I can give an old unloved 853 frame (niner sir 9) a new lease of life with the addition of a handful of pannier and bottle mount braze ons.

Anyone used a framebuilder that will take on modification work in the Hampshire/south coast area? I could post it I guess so other framebuilders could work too.

Half tempted to have a go at doing it myself as I have the facilities available but my skills are maybe a little rustic for an nice frame.

Demon ?

Never used them so can’t qualify their work.

Thanks – I saw him when I did a bit of a search. Nice work on the facebook page. He might be too much of an artist/perfectionist/hipster to tackle a quick modification of an old frame. But no harm in emailing him. Thanks again.

Anyone else? Would consider anything national if they were good & reasonably priced.

Check here for others

You want an old bloke in a shed really don’t you?

I used Steve Goff in Skelmersdale for a mod to my frame this year, he fit me in quickly and was friendly, very knowledgeable and reasonably priced.

Bottle mounts can be made from M5 nuts – a few minutes in a lathe to knock the corners off half the hexagon leaving a round bit 7-8mm diameter and maybe 2mm long that will sit nicely in a hole. Drill appropriate holes in your tubes then sweat in with silver solder (something like 55% silver off ebay which often comes with a little bag of flux). A MAPP gas plumbing torch is more than hot enough for silver and gives plenty of control – the flux will go clear and tube needs to be very faint red colour – any hotter and you just char the flux. Oxy-acet is fine if that is what you have access to, just go easy / use a small nozzle and keep the flame moving.

Anything more structural / butt jointed is probably better done with brass or TIG rather than silver.

Proper braze on parts from Ceeway http://www.framebuilding.com but postage is steep for just a few bits. I’d also second Steve Goff for a cheap and quick solution if you don’t want to diy (he’ll have drawers full of braze-ons).

Thanks for the tips Mick – got to say I’m tempted to do it myself.

Do it! It really is just basic metalwork / plumbing with the same rules (clean materials / good fits / don’t cook it too much). Mail me if you need any more detail (made about 10 frames now but started with braze-ons and dropout swaps). I don’t think I’ve ever actually bought bottle bosses – always made my own. Same for dropouts (occasionally cut by hand, often just zapped out CNC plasma – exactly the shape I want for less money).

Cheers.

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Tig brazing is also an option if you have access to a tig welder? SIF do a few difference rods that allow you to use lower amps than normal tig welding to effecively wet the rod out without melting the parent metals.
I’m tinkering with an old Koma frame and adding a disc mount and hose guide braze ons.

Worth trying my mate Jon at Tomo as he’s just up in Chertsey.

Sell me the niner and buy something with mounts already on it

Sell me the niner and buy something with mounts already on it

😀

Er, no!

I just looked at the latest Sir9 released this year and they have basically done what I’m proposing to do to mine to the stock model. Sort of adventurefy it. I wanted to build a Roholoff geared long distance ‘world traveller’ style tourer for a trip in the summer. I have the Rohloff in another bike doing nothing and a healthy parts bin. I recon the Sir9 with some tinkering will be perfect as a shorter trip bikepacker and a longer trip flat bar panniered beast.

I’ve always built up my own bikes, built my own wheels and done resprays – diy frame tinkering seems like the next logical step. I’ve talked myself into it!