Have any of you ever built a frame? (6 Viewers)

[CruiserTrash]

This is something I want to do once in my life. I'm very mechanically inclined. I've welded some and soldered more. I've done spray oil and enamel paint even more than that. I understand jigs, saws, and the other tools involved. At this point in my life I understand what I want out of a bike (or small stable of bikes) and how I want a bike to fit me. None of that makes me an expert in building a bike of course. There are pitfalls and traps, there's nuance, there are tricks of the trade that frame building no doubt pick up after years and decades of doing the work.

But this post is for amateurs. Has anybody ever done it? My goal is to build a specific use-case bike that fits me, which so far I've been unable to find. Many are close, none nail it.

For what it's worth there are many opportunities to go to a "frame building school" - workshop is probably a better term - where you build a frame over a week or two as training to become a full-time frame builder. These places cost many thousands of dollars and I can't afford that luxury. I'm considering taking apart some junk steel frames I have for practice, though. I certainly wouldn't be making them any worse off than they already are!

 

[tnkayaker]

I have been thinking about building one for a very long time. I really got the bug after attending a NAHBS in 2014. I have gone as far as designing one in bikecad and purchasing a tube set. I feel like I made the head tube too short and need to update the design and purchase a longer on.

So far I've only coped the seat tube using a hole saw. I'm not really happy with the results. I've tried using the one of the online coping print outs, but my printer will not print 1:1.

I don't have a frame jig. My plan is to 3d print fixtures for tacking the joints.

Anyway, I'm prepared for this one to be a total pile of garbage. Hopefully, I can recycle the expensive bits (bb shell, dropouts). Good luck.

 

[CruiserTrash]

Great feedback. I’m sure it’s going to be more difficult than I thought and the first frame is probably going to be junk as well.

I like the 3D print fixturing idea as long as it holds up to the heat of the torch traveling through the tubes. Originally I was thinking of getting blocks of metal, drilling out the center with a hole saw, and then somehow cutting them precisely in half but that’s a lot of work.

What type of frame are you building and what type of tubes are you using?

 

[tnkayaker]

I was thinking I would just tack (tig weld) with the 3d printed jigs.

It an aggressive gravel bike. Something like the Evil Chamois Hagar

I bought the head tube, bb shell, and drop outs from Paragon Machine Works. CS are straight .75 dia 4130 that will be bent, DT 31.7 double butted down tube, TT 28.6 double butted. The seat tube is external butt for a dropper.

 

[CruiserTrash]

I was thinking I would just tack (tig weld) with the 3d printed jigs.

It an aggressive gravel bike. Something like the Evil Chamois Hagar

I bought the head tube, bb shell, and drop outs from Paragon Machine Works. CS are straight .75 dia 4130 that will be bent, DT 31.7 double butted down tube, TT 28.6 double butted. The seat tube is external butt for a dropper.

Sounds awesome and like you've thought this through super well. I'm aiming for something much simpler, sort of early 80s style ATB on steroids running 27.5" wheels. Clearance for wide rubber. Relatively slack seat tube and short top tube for all day riding. It'll have a shorter chainstay than the old ATBs typically had and a head tube steeper than the seat tube - both of which will make it ride like less of a boat than the old ATBs without being twitchy (hopefully). I want a parallel top tube, lugs, and raked forks bEcAuSe ViNtAgE. I may add a second top tube or some other reinforcement so I can beat on it without worrying. Comfy enough to be a daily, sporty enough to hit some trails, equipped for loads, all with some relatively lightweight tubing and designed for strength.

There are some companies doing stuff like that already, but I'm a whiney baby and none of them are perfect enough for me. They're also really expensive and I'm yet again deluding myself into thinking that making something myself with no experience won't cost more than just buying a similar thing from somebody who already knows what they're doing. If I build my own frame I can say it's truly mine.

 

[tnkayaker]

Oh yeah. That sounds sweet. My first mtb was a Schwinn High Plains that was lugged and had a parallel top tube.

I guess you'll be silver brazing with it being lugged? Are you going to have to make custom lugs to get the geo you want?

 

[CruiserTrash]

Oh yeah. That sounds sweet. My first mtb was a Schwinn High Plains that was lugged and had a parallel top tube.

I guess you'll be silver brazing with it being lugged? Are you going to have to make custom lugs to get the geo you want?

Yeah, silver brazing for sure. Haven’t gotten as far as lug choices yet haha. Realistically this project might be a couple years out, so I’ve got time to look around. I’m not ruling out NOS at this point.

Just thinking through the process I feel like fixturing will be the most important part, with brazing temp/time coming in second. I think most of the higher quality/lighter tube sets are the air-hardened variety and I’ve heard those can be weakened with too high of temps or too long under heat. I guess I would probably order some extra tubing to practice on.

 

[KLF]

My dad and I built 4 frames back in the 70's. The first one is hanging in my garage now. It's a great bike with lots of miles on it, but ancient by today's standards (its only 10 speeds, for instance). My son has 2 of the others, and my nephew has the 4th.

Back in 1975, a bike shop called Proteus Design in College Park, MD would sell you a box of Reynolds 531 tubes and a bag of rough lugs, everything you'd need to build a complete frame. I think it was around $75. Campy dropouts. Sloping fork crown. But no plans, no instructions. You were on your own for that. This was way before the Internet, CAD, home computers, etc. So we started doing research, books, calling custom frame builders for advice. We ended up drawing out the first frame full sized on a big sheet of paper.

We built one jig for the main triangle out of a scrap piece of particle board, then another one for brazing the front forks to the head tube. Our tools were very crude, by today's standards. The only power tool we had was a jig saw for cutting the jigs. We used a simple hardware store torch head with Mapp gas to silver braze all the lugs. We devised a method of making paper templates to wrap around the tubes and mark the miters, which we cut with a hack saw and LOTS of filing. Our first few joints were a mess of too much flux and brazing rod, we had to spend hours chipping hard flux and filing to make them look decent. We wore out several sets of jewelers files. Eventually we got better at it.

The seat stays were the hardest part, as the lug at the top of the seat tube had no provision for them. We found some scrap steel in my dad's junk box (he had several of these) and we came up with a joint that looks really nice. I added mounts for a rear rack and water bottles. We cut cable stays out of 1/4" round stock, brazed them on.

Dad painted it with rattlecans, a nice two panel red & white, which we cured in the kitchen oven (mom wasn't happy about that). Then we made some slick decals using a trick with spray clear lacquer and rub-on letters on packing tape (no inkjet printers back then!). We realized the dropouts were gonna get chewed up from removing and installing the wheels, so Dad figured out how to do chrome plating, which we did in the garage with the battery from his car. This really stunk up the house, again mom wasn't happy.

I have a series of photos of the frame prior to painting, maybe I'll scan and upload here if interested. I had to wash a lot of dishes and deliver a lot of papers to get the money to buy all the components, I went with Dura-Ace for the crank set and brakes, Suntour derailers, found a used Brooks saddle, etc.

The first frame was for me, second for my brother, third for a family friend, but the last one was for my dad. His bike had some interesting changes, most notably he preferred to use Sturmy-Archer 5-speed enclosed hub in the rear.

I'm embarrassed to say I haven't rode that bike quite a few years.

 

[CruiserTrash]

My dad and I built 4 frames back in the 70's. The first one is hanging in my garage now. It's a great bike with lots of miles on it, but ancient by today's standards (its only 10 speeds, for instance). My son has 2 of the others, and my nephew has the 4th.

Back in 1975, a bike shop called Proteus Design in College Park, MD would sell you a box of Reynolds 531 tubes and a bag of rough lugs, everything you'd need to build a complete frame. I think it was around $75. Campy dropouts. Sloping fork crown. But no plans, no instructions. You were on your own for that. This was way before the Internet, CAD, home computers, etc. So we started doing research, books, calling custom frame builders for advice. We ended up drawing out the first frame full sized on a big sheet of paper.

We built one jig for the main triangle out of a scrap piece of particle board, then another one for brazing the front forks to the head tube. Our tools were very crude, by today's standards. The only power tool we had was a jig saw for cutting the jigs. We used a simple hardware store torch head with Mapp gas to silver braze all the lugs. We devised a method of making paper templates to wrap around the tubes and mark the miters, which we cut with a hack saw and LOTS of filing. Our first few joints were a mess of too much flux and brazing rod, we had to spend hours chipping hard flux and filing to make them look decent. We wore out several sets of jewelers files. Eventually we got better at it.

The seat stays were the hardest part, as the lug at the top of the seat tube had no provision for them. We found some scrap steel in my dad's junk box (he had several of these) and we came up with a joint that looks really nice. I added mounts for a rear rack and water bottles. We cut cable stays out of 1/4" round stock, brazed them on.

Dad painted it with rattlecans, a nice two panel red & white, which we cured in the kitchen oven (mom wasn't happy about that). Then we made some slick decals using a trick with spray clear lacquer and rub-on letters on packing tape (no inkjet printers back then!). We realized the dropouts were gonna get chewed up from removing and installing the wheels, so Dad figured out how to do chrome plating, which we did in the garage with the battery from his car. This really stunk up the house, again mom wasn't happy.

I have a series of photos of the frame prior to painting, maybe I'll scan and upload here if interested. I had to wash a lot of dishes and deliver a lot of papers to get the money to buy all the components, I went with Dura-Ace for the crank set and brakes, Suntour derailers, found a used Brooks saddle, etc.

The first frame was for me, second for my brother, third for a family friend, but the last one was for my dad. His bike had some interesting changes, most notably he preferred to use Sturmy-Archer 5-speed enclosed hub in the rear.

I'm embarrassed to say I haven't rode that bike quite a few years.

This is absolutely amazing, and if you get the time to scan photos I'd love to see them and file them away in my memory banks. I think my end goal would be very vintage-style bike in construction so your methods probably wouldn't be too different from the way I end up going. The tools and construction will pretty much be happening "at home" or at my small shop. In either case I don't have a huge toolset for this specific task. I'll probably use rattle cans and don't have a separate paint baking oven.

Interestingly I've also considered an SA 5spd rear hub for this project. In my mind, I'm building an early 80s style mountain bike frame but with geometry cues from a c.1940s British "path racer" or "clubman" style bike - and the latter would have certainly had an SA internally geared hub, either 3 or 4 speed. Of course there would be some changes. Modern dropout spacing first and foremost so that I don't have to chase vintage wheelsets, and I can possibly run a 1x gearing setup with 8-11 speeds in the rear if I don't go with an IGH. Wider tire clearances. Mounts for modern brakes and racks. Etc, etc. But those two things are the reference points.

Couple of questions:

Did your torch setup change as you built the four bikes? Once your feel improved did it cut down on the amount of work required to clean up the brazing?

How have the frames held up? Seems like they're all still good?

In owning many, many older bikes I've seen a few ways to do seat stays at the seat lug, and most of them seem to just tack the stays onto the side of the lug. Did you use the scrap metal method on all the bikes, or did that work get refined by the 4th bike?

Thanks again for chiming in!

 

[aztoyman]

In the early 90's my son was racing in BMX. He really wanted a Powerlite Mini aluminum bike and I couldn't really afford it. So I basically copied one.
I know it was 6061 T6 tube and I bought remnants from a supply house. I had a machinist friend at one of the mines machine the head tube and bottom bracket shell for me. I decided to use a chromoly fork I already had and I cut the rear drop outs by hand with a die grinder and files.
I worked at a Cat dealer and they let us use the place after hours to work on our own projects. I found enough stuff to rig up a jig and used the ancient Miller TIG machine that was the size of a refrigerator and as basic as it gets. It took me seemingly forever to get this done since I worked a ton of overtime there. The frame came out good. Not the highly polished beauty you could buy but my son was excited.
We took the cranks, wheels and all the good stuff off his current steel frame and he got to ripping around on it. WAY lighter than the steel bike. Unfortunately I found out that 6061 MUST be heat treated after welding. I didn't want him getting hurt because his frame snapped after landing from jumps so that frame became a wall hanger. I felt pretty bad to take it away so we worked out a deal where he could earn the store bought frame.

 

[CruiserTrash]

In the early 90's my son was racing in BMX. He really wanted a Powerlite Mini aluminum bike and I couldn't really afford it. So I basically copied one.
I know it was 6061 T6 tube and I bought remnants from a supply house. I had a machinist friend at one of the mines machine the head tube and bottom bracket shell for me. I decided to use a chromoly fork I already had and I cut the rear drop outs by hand with a die grinder and files.
I worked at a Cat dealer and they let us use the place after hours to work on our own projects. I found enough stuff to rig up a jig and used the ancient Miller TIG machine that was the size of a refrigerator and as basic as it gets. It took me seemingly forever to get this done since I worked a ton of overtime there. The frame came out good. Not the highly polished beauty you could buy but my son was excited.
We took the cranks, wheels and all the good stuff off his current steel frame and he got to ripping around on it. WAY lighter than the steel bike. Unfortunately I found out that 6061 MUST be heat treated after welding. I didn't want him getting hurt because his frame snapped after landing from jumps so that frame became a wall hanger. I felt pretty bad to take it away so we worked out a deal where he could earn the store bought frame.

Awesome story. This one also proves that you can get the job done with whatever tools you have. Does your son still have the frame hanging on the wall?

 

[aztoyman]

I'm not sure where it ended up. He's in his 40's now and has been all over the place.

 

[KLF]

This is absolutely amazing, and if you get the time to scan photos I'd love to see them and file them away in my memory banks. I think my end goal would be very vintage-style bike in construction so your methods probably wouldn't be too different from the way I end up going. The tools and construction will pretty much be happening "at home" or at my small shop. In either case I don't have a huge toolset for this specific task. I'll probably use rattle cans and don't have a separate paint baking oven.

Interestingly I've also considered an SA 5spd rear hub for this project. In my mind, I'm building an early 80s style mountain bike frame but with geometry cues from a c.1940s British "path racer" or "clubman" style bike - and the latter would have certainly had an SA internally geared hub, either 3 or 4 speed. Of course there would be some changes. Modern dropout spacing first and foremost so that I don't have to chase vintage wheelsets, and I can possibly run a 1x gearing setup with 8-11 speeds in the rear if I don't go with an IGH. Wider tire clearances. Mounts for modern brakes and racks. Etc, etc. But those two things are the reference points.

Couple of questions:

Did your torch setup change as you built the four bikes? Once your feel improved did it cut down on the amount of work required to clean up the brazing?

How have the frames held up? Seems like they're all still good?

In owning many, many older bikes I've seen a few ways to do seat stays at the seat lug, and most of them seem to just tack the stays onto the side of the lug. Did you use the scrap metal method on all the bikes, or did that work get refined by the 4th bike?

Thanks again for chiming in!

The hardware torch worked fine for the first 3 bikes (I still have it in my basement), then eventually my dad upgraded to one of those "kits" with the oxy bottles and Mapp gas cartridge tank, and a small handle on hoses. He said it was a lot hotter and he got better brazes. Yes, once we got some practice in with the brazing, we got better with less waste of rod and flux, and less cleanup work. All of the frames are still fine, no issues.

Unfortunately I only have one photo of the unpainted frame, these are scans of the actual photos:

Photos of after painting:

Yup, that is a "badge" that we made for the head tube, with my initials on it.

The flat cross bar thing above the brake caliper is the mount for the rear rack. Kinda hard to see how we did the seat stays attachment, I'll try to get the bike down and get some better photos.

 

[Somebodyelse5]

There's a place in Tucson that does a course... it's like 2-3 weeks long and about the cost of a college course but you leave with a frame you built. On my bucket list to do.

I'd really like to build my own frame but every time I start down the rabbit hole it ends up costing too much in tools to justify. maybe someday. let us know how it goes.

 

[CruiserTrash]

The hardware torch worked fine for the first 3 bikes (I still have it in my basement), then eventually my dad upgraded to one of those "kits" with the oxy bottles and Mapp gas cartridge tank, and a small handle on hoses. He said it was a lot hotter and he got better brazes. Yes, once we got some practice in with the brazing, we got better with less waste of rod and flux, and less cleanup work. All of the frames are still fine, no issues.

Unfortunately I only have one photo of the unpainted frame, these are scans of the actual photos:
View attachment 3950771

Photos of after painting:
View attachment 3950773
Yup, that is a "badge" that we made for the head tube, with my initials on it.

View attachment 3950774
The flat cross bar thing above the brake caliper is the mount for the rear rack. Kinda hard to see how we did the seat stays attachment, I'll try to get the bike down and get some better photos.

Amazing work. Love the sloping fork crown too. I really appreciate the photos.

@Somebodyelse5 I'll let you know how it goes ... in a couple years haha. Here in Colorado there's Yamaguchi out in Rifle or Newcastle, somewhere on the Western Slope heading towards Grand Junction. Another frame building school that costs a lot of money and you leave with a frame.