the ultimate in custom
 

2 weeks, one day off, burns, $1850 not including housing, and you have a raw frame you built yourself under the tutelage of one of the masters. http://www.yamaguchibike.com/school/registration.htm

holy crap i wanna go!

wow! talk about your ultimate valentine's present...

i really wish i hadn't clicked that link :D
now i'm frantically trying to come up with reasons not to do this, with minimal success.

Damnit!!!!! i wanna go too! that just tuition, room and board extra

Here is a good reason not to do this.

You will go, build a frame, realize that you want to build a better frame, realize that you don't have any of the tools to do so, buy the tools to do so, build a second frame, realize that the tools you bought were inferior and that your new frame is not as good a your first, build three more frames until you get a frame as good as the one you first made, buy new tools because you are tired of your ****ty ones even though now you have made them work.

$2000 first frame
$2000 first set of tools
$400 Second frame
$400 Third frame
$400 Fourth frame
$4000 second set of tools

$9200 two good frames, two bad frames, more tools then you know what to do with, and a $2000 car that needs a new engine.

Milo
Not to be pessimistic or anything.

then you sell frames 5-50 for a thousand bucks each...

you forgot to add frame painting and decals in your equation -

Also check out UBI.

I did their steel brazing class....it was awesome. I highly recommend it. I came out with a really nice steel track frame + fork (uhh...which I haven't parted out yet because I'm too financially strapped buying tools - It's really hard to justify a new bike when you already have two that work just fine).

A3rd's right though. I'm about to drop another 3k on finishing tools after I've already spent 4k-5k worth on jig/table/files/torch/misc tools.

Expensive - but I hope it will turn into something I can make a living off of.

www.hottubes.com

planning on taking their class this summer...

Don't forget the crazy liability insurance you need when you start selling frames. Brother is going to sue your a_s when one of your welds fails skidding into an intersection.

The Hot Tubes course is one week, the others are 2 weeks?

Please report back after you take the course. If only I had an extra $2000 laying around.

Looks to me like the money is in teaching others to build frames, not in building them yourself.
Six grand in two weeks with rural Colorado real estate prices is not to be sneezed at.

Whatever happened to that guy who was getting the custom vanilla track bike with a custom lugged carbon (!) seapost? Sure sounded interesting!
That seems like the ultimate in custom, to me!