We’re kind of belaboring this and it wouldn’t surprise me if OP checked out.
There is one part of the braze that bothers me. On the segment tube, there is a significant part of the joint where the brass didn’t flow out at all. I have never seen the Bilinky method of tinning a joint, but my understanding is there should be braze all the way around the joint at the base. So that means it wasn’t really tinned.
I’m also not sure how you could have a section of tube where there was a fillet, but it wasn’t attached to the tube. I guess this means the fillet bridged over about 1/8” of the segment tube.
Back at the start of COVID, I was talking with Dave to take some stuff down there to test but never got to it. Maybe I will some day. I have a stash of forks of different styles that I would like to have tested just to prove to myself if anything.
It’s this bit that I’ve circled in red where it looks like the braze hadn’t fused with the segment tube. Not hot enough presumably? I suspect that the lack of fusion there caused the whole joint to break.
I haven’t checked out, I value all the feedback. To summarize the joint was nowhere near hot enough, and despite the joint seeming to flow when I was brazing, there were obviously problems there. I cleaned it all up and rebuilt all the joints and was sure that everything was good and hot. The braze flowed very well and the fork stood up to a lot of reefing that I did after to make sure I didn’t have the same issue problem again. Will we ever know if it’s perfect? Probably not. Is this bike for me to ride and I understand the risks inherent in this? Yes.
I understand that forks are should be taken seriously, I understand that some feel it is very likely too soon in my building hobby to even consider building a fork.
Learning is a special thing, failure is inevitable, we just hope it isn’t catastrophic. I value the feedback of this community. Exposing your mistakes to the internet for critique isn’t super fun, but I understand everyone just wants to help. This is a supportive corner of the internet and that’s a pretty special thing these days.
it seems the whole fork blade side didn’t get up to temp - OR was furthest from getting up to temp. across the top you can see the brazing peeling off the tube.
it seems the whole fork blade side didn’t get up to temp - OR was furthest from getting up to temp. across the top you can see the brazing peeling off the tube.