Wow, okay thank you for telling me this! I guess I need to find another way to practice.. I want to build a frame, but if I just jumped into a full project, I would surely mess it up and waste money. Suggestions?
Originally Posted by
RoboMonkey
I have done this before, turning a ~58 cm frame into a ~51 cm frame. Reducing a 61cm frame to a 57cm is gonna be a stretch, and would likely require that you buy new tubes or lugs. A change from 61 to ~52-54 might not require new parts. The easiest way to resize a frame is to grind away one lug/tube per joint. For example when taking apart the seat cluster, cut off the seat tube and grind it out of the lug, and you would have salvaged the lug and top tube.
Using a torch to debraze things is not a good idea, I have been unable to do it without warping/damaging the parts. Taking apart joints is actually much more difficult than brazing them, exceptions to this are seatstay caps (and maybe dropouts). From Tim Paterek: