Squeezebox

Is frame repair more difficult than frame building with new stuff?
In a recent Al head tube repair thread I said I'ld never take a repair to anyone other than a pro frame builder. I'm a good rehab carpenter. Give me an old house and I'm in my element. I've done plenty of structural repair. So I can say structural repair in carpentry is more difficult than new building.
So what about bicycles? So is frame repair more difficult than a new build?
I ran into the local amateur frame builder at the dog park. He was on one of the nicest lugged steel frames I've ever seen. Extreme quality. So if I insulted any amateur frame builders,
I apologize.

fietsbob

42 .. have more specifics ?


TIG, Especially, and Fillet brazed miters Other than bodges that leave the joints alone, Toss the frame..


Lugged frames have better repair potentials to heat the Brass between the lug & frame tube, , to its meling point, and pull out the tube

of course things like drop out replacements are less difficult than main triangle crash replacement repairs

RoboMonkey

It depends a lot on what you are repairing and how much of the original frame you want to keep. Some parts of steel frames can be easily debrazed. Seatstays, dropouts, shifter bosses, and cable guides are easy to remove. Repairing other portions of lugged frames can be easier than building a new frame IF you are willing to replace some tubes and/or lugs. It is difficult to debraze lugged joints without damaging something, but that is not an issue if you sacrifice one of the tubes/lugs from the joint. You have the original geometry of the frame to work with, so this can make putting everything together easier on you.

Carbon is extremely easy to repair. Slap some carbon and epoxy on and wrap it with electrical tape. The main difficulty for carbon repair is fixing the paint once the repair is done.

Live Wire 

Ha, I've found tube replacements to be a lot faster/easier on tig/fillet bikes. You do 90% of the work with an angle grinder. Top tube takes less than an hour.
But to the op, new is better...and much cleaner!

Andrew R Stewart 

Agree with the above and I'll add my thoughts. Some of the answer depends on whether you want to mimic the OE style details and components. It can be harder to duplicate another's lug shoreline curves or cut outs then merely using an off the shelf lug. When you take frames apart you learn how they were built, for better or worse. Like finding pins in sockets. Or tubes that didn't touch at the miters. So sometimes your project takes on a greater set of decisions and involvements.

I don't do many repairs but over the years have done a bunch. I always learn something. Often it's to not do that type of job again (but one's memory fades and you do). I usually use mechanical methods to pull and prep joints as I don't like having any more heat cycles then needed. Takes a tad longer but I feel better. Andy.

unterhausen

the problem I've had with repairs is that someone screwed up in the first place and that's why the frame broke. Then what? So a simple crack isn't so simple any more is it? A large custom production builder used to make these really nice frames with fastback stays, but they drilled the relief hole at the end of the seat post clamp too close to the stays. And they used silver for the stays, so no extra strength. Years later when they crack, what's the repair supposed to be? Really, you need to take the stays off and clean out and put them back on with more strength, or it's just going to crack again. But who wants to put $250 (minimum) plus a paint job back into a frame like that? Oh, and they blame the customer for breaking the stays. Of course they did.

There was another frame I fixed where the builder really thinned out the lugs. Beautiful frame. Head tube was almost cracked in two, crack just went around the lug shoreline. The miters looked like they were fine, but they were clocked, so they didn't exactly match up right. Probably best to just throw that one away.

Aluminum bikes leave the factory in Taiwan with $25 in them, why repair them at all? Most of them need to be heat treated after repair, it's not cost effective.

MassiveD

As a craftman I always think the difficulty question is irrelevant. It doesn't mater if it is difficult, because difficulty doesn't generally exist in pro work. At a basic level, you get a cert in welding if you can reliably weld the coupon/test piece. You have to do it over and over again so that if you weld pipelines of nuke subs, difficulty is not part of the equation. It's difficult to win the Tour de France, because even the best might not always succeed, that can't be part of the situation if you are welding frames.

Where difficulty comes into things is when learning, or in the touring case, when getting unknown folks to do repairs they are unlikely to be familiar with. I addressed that fact in my stick welding bikes thread, that incomprehensibly isn't a sticky on the touring forum. 8000 posts and no stickies, I need to think about that. lol.

I don't really see the business case for repairing frames. If you build someone a house they wreck it, you don't give them a half price repair. And in that case the liability is far lower. In the current environment, where the EU actually has a testing regime for new frames, that many customs don't meet or exceed, it is hard to see how one justifies touching repairs. Where is the test data on that? There isn't great data on new frames but at least there is history.