gomango

Now that's an attractive bicycle.

Well done.

gomango

Agreed.

Loads of pics please.

gomango

Wing it once or twice, then I'll buy the third set.

I have a pretty cool idea for a frameset.

neo_pop_71

Right on Bill, that's awesome!!!

I have a tig welded frame/fork class as well as a lugged braze frame/fork class on my list of to do's before I die. I hooked up with a local builder who was offering a week long coarse in traditional lugged construction. We agreed on a week and he gave me a list of what to order from Nova Cycles. I got right to it and ordered a Dedacciai tube set, all the lugs, various drop outs, and the parts needed to make a lugged fork. I was told I also needed to buy the Tim Paterek Framebuilding Manual. As my week was approaching I was full of anticipation as building my own frame has always been a dream of mine dating back to my days of racing as a junior. The day before I was to start the class my instructor was in a terrible car accident. He was in recovery for the better part of a year. I hung in there with him, I was optimistic that he'd be back, unfortunately he gave up building as a result of his injuries. So, I have the makings of a great frame but no lugged framebuilder close by who is taking on students. Making a lugged frame and a tig frame are still near the top of my list... maybe your postings will motivate me to sign up and take another shot at building my own frame!

Don't be stingy with the photos and write ups... you've got a bunch of us on your line!

Thanks as always!!!

-D-

thenomad

totally want!

wrk101

That book is highly recommended by all. For those on the thrifty side and wanting to just take a peak at the book, the author has posted an early version, on line, free. Since this is the C & V forum, an early version might just be the ticket.

neo_pop_71

On the "thrifty side" should not be part of your vocabulary, even if your name is Thrifty Bill, there is nothing affordable when it comes to building your own frame. It's been a few years since I bought my stuff, the Paterek Manual was $80.00, the Deda tube set was on sale for $300.00 (Nova doesn't even sell Deda anymore), and the rest of the stuff combined with a NJS Tange Pro headset came in just over $600.00. It's definitely not one of those on the fence decisions, if you're going to commit then it's going to hurt your wallet!

Bill, on the Brew Cycles website it specifies class size of 2 people with 50 hours of instruction, is that the class that you signed up for? If so, that's great opportunity to get plenty of one-on-one instruction. I saw that they have a lugged frame class too... maybe I'll pack up my Deda tubing and book back to back weeks, tig one week with lugged brazing the next week. It would be pretty fabulous to go with a box of tubes and come home with two finished frames!

Thanks for the inspiration!

-D-

uncle uncle

...it's in my bucket too. Excited to hear the follow up posts and pix. Hoping for a great vicarious experience.

Henry III

I can't imagine how someone can learn to TIG weld and build a frame in two weeks? In my production welding program I spent a whole semester learning the basics of TIG welding and still can't lay that stack of dimes.

repechage

I could see the recommendations coming from the instructor saving a great deal of time regarding amperage, cup size and settings, feed rate etc. Basically all the stuff most would have to gain from lots of experience. So, that would short cut much. But still, there is technique, and not all can master it.

repechage

Who was the injured builder?

simmonsgc

Hey Bill--

Have fun in beautiful Creston, NC! Steve is a great guy. Powdercoated an '80s Trek for me. Incredible job. Gave me and a pal the full tour of his shop when I picked it up.

himespau 

Sounds cool.

neo_pop_71

Hi repechage,

The frame builder that was going to instruct me in the fine art of brazing was Tom Rightmyer. Tom had two shops a few doors up from my workshop in an industrial area in Fullerton, CA. This is funny that I find myself writing about Tom twice in one day! I posted about Tom and his connection to Richard Cunningham and Haro's e-stay bike that was similar to Richard's Mantis this morning in the vintage mountain bike thread. In that thread WNG picked up a beautiful e-stay Haro and I shared some my Haro and some details.

Tom and Richard go back to the late 70's with land speed record bikes. Tom actually built the woman's land speed record setting bike back in 1980, it was a 3 person powered rig with an aluminum skin that looked like a missile. Tom had that bike hanging in the top of his welding shop. Tom was a long standing member of The Orange County Wheelmen and built numerous one off bikes for riders over the years. Tom was involved in the early days with a number of bike manufacturers. Here is a link to the MOMBAT page on Ross Shafer's 1982 Salsa Scoboni, Tom made the Bull Moose bar and stem that Ross used. 1982 Salsa Scoboni The site credits Tom for the Mantis stems, it's more involved, Tom was Richard's mentor and taught him to tig weld. I would have loved to have been given the opportunity to learn from Tom, I'm thankful he was willing to taken me on as a student, but I'm most thankful that I could call Tom a buddy. He passed a few years ago, Tom was a one-of-a-kind, one of those rare rough gems! I saw an old neighbor from the shop days recently, he reminded me about how if you wanted to pick Tom's brain about something, don't bother unless you have a fresh cold 6 pack of Coors in hand. Tom looked gruff but he was very generous and giving... my daughter still has the calendar of Koko the gorilla and her kitten that Tom gave her and I'm still riding my Schwinn 974 because Tom re-engineered the broken Suntour quill seatpost.

Rest in peace my talented friend!!!

wrk101

Just finished day 3, thought it would be a good time for an update.

When I signed up for this class, I figured two students to one teacher would mean Steve would be away a lot running his business. WRONG! Steve's attention is on the two of us, teaching us what it takes to become a frame builder, with the output from the class being a custom frame to boot. Class cost not much different than the cost of a custom frame, so why not?

I have found out I have A LOT to learn about TiG welding. Turns out that a couple of hours is not enough to master welding. Go figure. Practice, practice, practice! Left to my own devices, I would not have a road worthy frame by week's end. So Steve does take over on the technical welding sections, still allowing us a lot of bench welding practice. Steve's been doing it for 40 years now.

I figure I am going to wander down the hall at the community college I work at part time next week and find out whether I can practice there.

Right now, we just finished the bottom bracket shell to seat tube. Tomorrow is going to be hectic for sure. But we are actually slightly ahead of schedule.

First pic, practice on some pieces of scrap, mainly DT gussets from Steve's BMX building days. Initial welding is just with the electrode on a flat piece of tubing. Master that first before introducing welding rod. Then practice laying a bead. Realize these gusset pieces are about twice the thickness of frame tubing, and its a lot easier laying a bead on top of a single piece, than joining two much thinner pieces together.

At least my grinding and mitering skills are pretty decent.

Second picture shows my seat tube and bb shell mounted on the jig for initial welding. Its more than tack welding, its welded completely (180 degrees) on one side, and tacked on the other.

Third picture is an interesting jig to assess/make sure seat tube is perfectly perpendicular to the bb shell before final welding on the bench.



Steve has some neat jigs, I can tell it would cost serious $$ to do this on my own.

bradtx

wrk101, I'm SO jealous!

Brad

zazenzach

how practical/translateable is the knowledge you learned? could you actually build a bike at home on your own now? from what i heard, you get taught on professional equipment that would be very hard/expensive to buy on your own.

wrk101

Depends on how much skill you have welding going into the class. If you lack that skill, there is a necessary learning curve there. In addition, some people already have a lot of welding equipment for other hobbies, such as restoring old cars, or whatever. If not, you will be into some serious $$ for the welding gear. The TiG welder itself is pretty expensive. Then you have the frame jig as a minimum. Other tools such as bench grinder, drill press, sander, and so on, are tools many but not all have. Then you have the need for some serious work space. The jig is the least of the expense.

qcpmsame 

Bill, thanks for the update on your class, I'm learning much just from following your thread. Are you planning on taking a brazed frame/lugged class, also? If you said I missed that one, please excuse the interruption. Frame building is something I would like to learn, I have a close friend that is a master welder and is very skilled at brazing, too. He was trained by his father, an aviation machinist and welder from the 40's through the 70's here at NARF/NAD Pensacola. After Vietnam he was one of the initial machinist apprentices at the Westinghouse nuclear components division, here (since closed.) He can/will teach me the basics of TiG and brazing on our companies equipment, and his own set-ups. Actually doing a bicycle frame would need a dedicated class for my ambitions.

Bill

Cynikal 

You can build a frame without tooling, it just takes more time. If you are a pro and trying to get frames out the door then investing in tooling makes a lot of sense. I plan on getting (or building) a jig. I bought a portable oxy/acyt setup off of CL for $100. I probably won't build more then 10 frames in the next 10 years so I'm keeping my tooling light.

brockd15 

This guy's doing it on the cheap...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHAuqvR26qk

wrk101

A few more pics as an update. First picture is just a glimpse of DT mitering. Realize the tube not only has to be ground to tight fit the shape of the BB shell (and the other end ground carefully to fit the HT at a fairly steep angle), but then you have to grind it to fit around the seat tube. Chain stay fitting is a bit of a PITA, as the new style drop outs have one position only, you have to miter tubes carefully to get a tight fit. Imagine getting a nice tight fit on the bb shell, but the stay is too long. Grind too much and you overshoot and your stay is too short. Grind in one area just a moment too long, and you loose your nice tight fit.

On any of the tubes, grind too long and you are on your way to making a smaller frame size…. Or shorter stays...

Lots of measurements to remember and recheck. For some reason, I got distracted and got mixed up on rear drop out spacing. I wanted 135mm, NOT 130!!! OOPS! And I needed clearance for wider tires. Caught the mistakes before welding, so its OK, but some grinding effort was wasted.

Then comes braze ons for the down tube. The fourth pic is my class mates IGH build.

wrk101

I can see where a lot of the skills are transferrable. And at least in my case, I have a fair amount of experience brazing, so it would probably have a shorter learning curve. Not sure how many classes are in this old guy (me).

Italuminium

Awesome work Bill!

oddjob2

@wrk101, did you get your rack braze on question answered?

Looks cool what you're up to. Much better than working in a crawl space!!!!