This week we worked on a number of cool repairs. One of the most interesting projects we completed was a full head tube replacement on a Look KG 386.
The bike arrived here with a broken 1” head tube in need of repair. This older 1” standard means that it’s hard to find compatible parts these days, so we decided with the customer that it was a good opportunity to upgrade to the more modern 1⅛” head tube standard.
The first step in the repair was to research older Look geometries. We put the damaged frame in our jig and set it up to confirm our measurements. This is an essential step in ensuring that the bike will ride just as it did before it was damaged.
In preparation for slicing off the old head tube, we created some cut lines. The lines needed to be far enough back to get rid of the damage, but not so far back that it would leave a too much of a gap when we got ready to affix the new head tube.
Next we made our cut, stripped paint from the repair area and fabricated a new head tube for a 1⅛” Chris King headset.
Back into the jig, we confirmed proper alignment and geometry, then tacked the new head tube into place.
A large part of the work we do on frames is sculptural, so the next step we took was to fill in gaps, shape and mold the surface of the new head tube area. This step, while only partially structural, is crucial to making sure that the surface of the frame looks smooth and finished after it receives it new paint at the end of the repair.
Nearing the end of the process, we vacuum formed and oven cycled the new intermediate modulus carbon fiber to permanently affix the headtube and provide structural support.
One last round of sculptural work, and we were ready for paint matching. This is always a meticulous process. Paint colors, graphics and logos are recreated by hand by our paint team to match the original paint job.
In this case, since we upgraded to the new 1⅛” standard, the bike was in need of a new fork. We sourced one from ENVE and, as we often do, painted it to match the graphics and color scheme of the original fork.
