Framebuilders - Framebuilder Course/Instruction Recommendations

This forum benefits from excellent minds with a passion for bicycle frames. I hope participants will respond to this question:

Would you comment on the benefits and niches of the various frame building courses that are currently being offered by UBI, Yamaguchi, and others?

Please note other alternative courses that you are aware of.

I live much closer to Yamaguchi than UBI, but I want to make a choice based on interest rather than just geographic proximity.

I am interested primarily in the nuances of constructing brazed, lugged, steel frames.

I have no prior brazing experience, and moderate tinkering skills messing with bikes for 10 years.

Thank you!

Do a search, this topic comes up often.

Both UBI and Yamaguchi have a good reputation. You can't go wrong.

There's also Doug Fattic in Niles, Michigan.

There's also Doug Fattic in Niles, Michigan.

I'll second that. Doug's been teaching frame building for years. He apprenticed in England about the same time as Richard Sachs. His classes are very small, and you will come away happy. He also has a damn nice frame jig of a type used in GB for years (I copied it using aluminum tubes). He has a web site I believe.

rlong

UBI has a good rep, but if I were in it I would go to a single builder. Try to find one near your area. Travel is expensive. I've heard good things about Fattic and Yamaguchi. Plus, these guys are real pros, so you learn from a single framebuilder. Just my opinion. In this day, learning from a single builder is as close as you can get to an apprenticeship. And in reality, apprenticeships in framebuilding just don't occur anymore. Framebuilders have to make a living too.

You ought to try to learn as much as you can before you go. In fact, you may surprise yourself and find that you want to teach yourself. This path has been traveled before, but surely it would take longer than going to an experience builder and learning that way. Do a search on framebuilding. There's tons of info out there. Also, the Paterak manual is really good too. Good luck.

Before you jump into a course, have you considered watching the Paterek videos? They are $75 for the set or $60 to rent them from smart flix. The production quality isn't good, but there's a wealth of info on them and you can see what you'll be getting into.

Sheldon

I think the big advantage of schools is really for people who don't want to work in the business. You can go for a period, pay money and come away with an experience. I think if a person is cut out to do this kind of thing they need to be able to teach themselves. One is going to end up doing a lot of stuff from marketing to manufacturing, so it pays to be able to work stuff out on ones own. Money is likely to be tight so it would pay to put as much money into getting somethign done as possible.

I think the big advantage of schools is really for people who don't want to work in the business. You can go for a period, pay money and come away with an experience. I think if a person is cut out to do this kind of thing they need to be able to teach themselves. One is going to end up doing a lot of stuff from marketing to manufacturing, so it pays to be able to work stuff out on ones own. Money is likely to be tight so it would pay to put as much money into getting somethign done as possible.

I would assume it would be the other way around. I would rather have proper instruction to avoid years of bad habits, or improper technique. The money saved doing it correctly would more than pay for the school, and keep a new frame builders reputation positive.

I took a frame building class at The Crucible (http://www.thecrucible.org/) in Oakland, CA. Good stuff! It was once a week for 10 weeks, plus some optional stuff on the weekends. I think I paid $550 or $570 for the class, but it looks like prices have gone up a bit; the last one was $670.