antokelly

hello folks ,ok my young son in law is a fitter by trade and is dead keen to get into the art of frame building, over here in Ireland theres not much info on it ,so can anyone put him on the right track as in jigs to buy course's to take basically anything that's going to be of help.
oh any links to building courses thanks.

Scooper

A good first step IMHO would be to obtain a copy of The Paterek Manual, and possibly Tim's framebuilding DVD set. An earlier version of the Paterek Manual may be downloaded free of charge from Tim's website HERE.

antokelly

Scooper thanks a million for that that should be of great help thanks.

Scooper

Another good book is Designing and Building Your Own Frameset by Talbot. It has been out of print for years, but is often available used for a price. I notice somebody has posted scans of the complete book HERE, probably in violation of the copyright.

antokelly

this is great info thanks ,my son in law will be chuffed with all this ,
i just wonder if he knows what involved in making a good frame.
i will pass on all this tomorrow should keep him busy for a while.

Eric Estlund 

Is Dave Yates still teaching? If not there are a number of frame building classes in the US with stellar reputations- could be the vacation of a lifetime for a motivated student.

antokelly

i think dave yates is still at it but he only take you through some of the build as far as i know.
i seem to be getting a lot of negative comments(not here) from people i ask about the idea of building frames, like a you can buy a frame in china for peanuts ,or who the hell wants a custom frame when theres so many good frame to be bought for little or nothing.
well i think there still room for another builder we all had to start somewhere .
and my son in law seems dead keen to give it a go at least ,he knows his way round a welding torch and he aint no dope .i think he's going to buy that dvd set that was recommended by scooper looks like a good place to start.
so thanks lads for the positive thoughts much appreciated.

ultraman6970

I could swear there was a pdf moving around with the talbot book. I even thought i had it.

Doug Fattic 

If your son-in-law is really serious about making frames to sell to others than he needs to do more for his education than read some framebuilding manuals. Those are for someone that wants to do something himself in his spare time or get some general idea if it might be something he wants to explore further. I am one of those that teach framebuilding classes here in the States. Some of my students have devoured all the written materials and have spent a lot of time on online framebuilding forums before they came to class. Even with all that they were still at just the beginning of their journey and in no way ready to be a professional.

My typical class is 2 weeks long but I also do 3 week ones. There is a lot of information to pass along. The irony is that the US is now the center of the framebuilding universe but it used to be in the UK. Before I became a framebuilder I was a full time high school teacher and I spent a couple of summers in the early 70’s looking around all the frame shops in England for a place where I could apprentice. I bet I visited 50 or more. I did that for the specific purpose of bringing that knowledge back to the States to teach it here. I did find the right place to learn and have taught classes since 1976. As a trained educator I’m pretty serious about how I teach these classes so a student can leave as prepared to make more frames as possible.

I just had a student from the UK that got a grant from the Winston Churchhill foundation. He not only took my class, he visited a lot of other American builders and wrote about his experiences in his ninelittletubes blog. Check it out. Right now I'm in the Ukraine so I can't send you any information if you PM for a couple of days.

antokelly

Doug fattic, thanks a million for that to be honest i would say he would like to learn the basics at this stage as in .materials what jigs to buy or make getting angles , he would not be able to travel to the states for 3 weeks .
can you give us some idea how much it would cost for your course and what would be required from him in relation to your course.

Doug Fattic 

This isn’t the place to give too many specifics about what we sell. PM me to get my email address and I will send you lots of information. I am traveling back to the States today and tomorrow so I won’t have internet access much if at all while I am in route. What I can say is that there are quite few that don’t have the time or money to take either a 2 or 3-week course. I recognize that 2 weeks is often the limit of what one might have to spare. Even then a person doesn’t learn all they need to know. It just gets them started properly in the time available. There are some that can spend an extra week and that allows for learning more details. For those that can’t afford either $1800 or $2300 for the longer classes, I also offer a 3-day class for $500, which covers the basics of silver, and brass brazing and frame design. Since personal instruction in how-to-braze is the most important skill a teacher can give, this at least is a big improvement over those trying to figure it out by trial and error. I’ve seen some really decent results from even that short of a time. Of course not everyone has the ability to braze well just like some can’t sing on tune.

You indicated that your son-in-law wanted to learn framebuilding as a trade. That requires a different amount of training and equipment than someone that just wants to build something for himself and maybe a buddy or two after work and can take his time with hand tools. In order to make money the father of your future grandchildren has to produce a reasonable product within a certain amount of time. And he has to convince others he knows what he is doing so they will buy from him. This is why a pro builder has fixtures and machine equipment to make things more accurately more quickly. If he takes too long he loses money. I’ve actually had some students make as nice a frame in class as some I’ve seen at NAHBS. The difference is that it took them 120 hours of work to make it that well (and with the help of my very nice equipment). I figure it takes me about 1/3rd the time to do a task as a beginning student. He should also consider that at least 1/2 his time will be spent in making the business run and not making frames.

Another problem for someone wanting to be a pro is that poorly made stuff he did in the beginning (when he was trying to figure things out) can hang around a long time to embarrass his reputation later on. Even if he fixes something right away for free the owner of the frame can still say years later “I had one of his frames once and it broke”. A poor start can be really expensive.

What equipment a person needs to start a trade is a matter of debate. I have a list I give students that falls into 3 categories. Essential, when I can get the money and if all my dreams comes true. In round figures I say a person would want to spend at least $5000 to get started properly and $10000 would be better. This can be reduced if one has the time to wait for deals in the classifieds or eBay.

Of course if these requirements are beyond the guy that married your daughter, he can do what many do and enjoy framebuilding as a hobby. He can take his time with simple tools and ask questions online.