Bicycle Mechanics - framebuilding for beginners

I have been thinking for a while of building a bike from scratch- buying the lugs and tubes and brazing a frame together. Has anyone ever done this? I have never done any welding or brazing (apart from possibly 30 years ago at school-I forget). It would be amazing to see a bike come together and to ride it. It can´t be that hard- has anyone ever done this? or is it just an unattainable dream realizable only by a few elite framebuilders who labour away in the bowels of the earth passing on the dark framebuilding art to select apprentices..Etc (you get the picture)

ideally I would like to build a recumbent- has anyone any experience of this?

I built couple of frames, it is not such a big deal, but if you want to just build one, even with minimum tools, the cost is not really worth it. It is not particularly hard, especially if you silver/brass braze lugged steel bike. It is time consuming while you are learning, without fancy jigs, etc. (I did mine with hack saw, files and Dremel) but it is certainly very posible and lot of people are doing it. I enclose couple of links:

http://www.sheldonbrown.com/rinard/framebuild.htm and http://www.phred.org/~josh/build/suppliers.html

I don't have any links for recumbents, but do a google search, there are many folks building them and I believe I even saw some kits for sale. I also remember seeing some fellow building a Carbon Fiber frame from scratch, in Germany somewhere, so do the search....

http://frameforum.net

thanks guys there are some good links there- I have just found on the net that my local college does a night course in basic metalworking including brazing and thread cutting- I will give them a ring and see if there are any places still free