Hello everyone! I worked in the industry selling and fixing bikes for about 8 years but could never afford a custom frame. Now that I can, I have found that I would rather maybe get into frame building. I have zero experience in a shop so I figured copying an existing frame that I have always been interested in would be the best starting point, is this true? I plan on practicing mitering and joining until I am satisfied with where I am at and then diving into copying maybe a Soma Wolverine (sliding rear drop outs for some wiggle room on rear wheel alignment) or some sort of fixed gear for the same reason. Does this seem like a good idea?
Edit for clarification: I will be joining a local maker space that has access to a milling machine, welding equipment, metal finishing equipment etc… and I was thinking of making my own jig/fixture out of extruded aluminum (saw a few cool youtube videos on the topic)
I copied an Orbea Laufey for my first frame and used sliding dropouts for simplicity. I think it’s a great idea! I also missed the mark and my head tube was way too slack after welding. Because I tried to copy the Laufey I discovered the deviation right away - the ride was quite different than what I expected.
In conclusion, go for it! Let someone else do the design work while you focus on your process. You also potentially get a benchmark to compare to.
That is awesome to hear! Did you make your own fork the first time around? I was thinking of just building the frame to get the basics down and using the fork that would otherwise come with the Wolverine.
I made my first fork after two frames. It involved figuring out more fixturing and felt like a more critical component that I didn’t trust myself to make right away.
Frame #1 I did a middle of the road commuter where none of the geo matter that much, plenty of clearance for tire, cranks and chainring, and used a Soma fork.
Frame #2 I copied geo and used a carbon fork. And almost got burned by chainring clearance, it misses the chainstays by a mm or less.
Both of those bikes ended up with chainstays shorter than originally planned because I was learning and had to correct things.
After that, I got more confident designing to my own spec. At the start, I would give yourself wiggle room in the designs.
Was the chainring clearance issue due to the design you copied having some pretty tight tolerance? That is something I hadn’t considered. I guess I haven’t considered most things haha, I am just excited to get started and make a ton of mistakes to learn from.
IMO, I would not copy the Wolverine directly. I think it has room for improvement. Design is also the fun part, the reason why you would get a custom bike rather than buying a Wolverine!
Also, the Wolverine is made in Asia, where they have access to different tools and techniques. A tangible example, the dropout they use is designed for tapered chainstays and tig welding:
If you are brazing, bending custom chainstays, or trying to make existing chainstays work, you need wider hoods for the chainstays and seatstays to land.
But I think you are thinking in the right place. Start with a simple, known design with a lot of references.
Let us know if you need help designing a bike. It would be a useful asset to the forum.
Not really, just that shorter chainstays and room for wider tires tend to have tighter clearances I guess. I missed changing one setting in Bikecad, and I don’t have all the little tools to check clearances without fully installing components, just a bunch of little things.
Rear triangles are hard to duplicate. Lots of bends and dimples on metal bikes. I used off the shelf chainstays and did my best to hit my design mark. I think I got as aggressive as possible without doing any of my own bending or dimpling, and without using a yoke.
I know that tig welding is much harder to get into, however that is what interests me the most! So I plan on spending majority of my time honing that skill in order to hopefully tig weld a frame together. I am not opposed to brazing, however there is something mesmerizing about a really beautifully executed weld.
That being said, do you think something like that is reasonable, or do most less experienced people start by brazing?
FWIW I had probably 100 hours of TIG practice before feeling moderately comfortable making my first frame. Even then my welds were not at all pretty. There are some really crazy angles to hit, especially in the rear triangle. I had one seatstay weld fail but it was repairable.
Sorry, I was not implying you should do brazing, just that the hoods are small. Even with TIG, it’s much nicer to have larger hoods to work with. It gives you a lot more margin of error to get the clearances you need and the space to miter your stays!
I learned to silver braze lugs, then bronze fillet brazing, now I’m working on tig. Tig is less forgiving than fillet brazing because you’re able to add excess filler and file it away on a brazed joint, but I’m not sure it’s any easier to do well.
They are all good skills to have. I started with lugs because it seemed like the fastest way to build a bike with the fewest tools. I probably won’t build another lugged bike, but I will definitely use the skills.
Design + fab the simplest frame for your first go-round (i.e. a fixie w/28-32mm tires and longer chainstays).
I know it’s not very hip, interesting or sexy but you will learn a bunch from the process and removing complexity gives you a higher chance of success in a shorter amount of time.
In teaching, my goal was to provide a “win” as fast as possible and build on that positive momentum. Stacking wins is the same as compounding interest. You might start a bit slower but the momentum and payoff is huge.
