Thanks for all the responses. I definitely get what you guys are saying. I wish we could get some stats like:
during frame 1 what was the total cost of equipment you had at the time
during frame 2
during frame 3
etc.

I imagine it's a ramp up.
I'd love to earn some money in building bike frames. Right now I'm an interaction designer, i also run a coworking space and have about 1000 square feet of raw basement space (with a door to the outside) that I could donate to my frame building, and I work for myself, so I think there will be no better time than now. Do some website design for a few hours, go downstairs and file for a while, repeat. I'd love to split my time and income between the two and considering how much I paid for a masters in interaction design, spending 5 even 10k on framebuilding classes and equipment seems like a bargain. I also think that Pittsburgh could use at least one framebuilder.

Anyway, more lurking, more posting.