Thanks again for the input and the offer for help, I’m sure I’ll be tapping the community as I progress. I agree I should be able to conceptually figure out a lot of the process in terms of design, lots to learn on the execution front!
I’m assuming you say using GRX due to the relatively large chainring size and offset?
You’ve all forgotten the one most important tool. The flat surface. Yeah a jig and a straight edeg and a piece of string are all useful but that flat surface has been the datum I use to check everything I do. I’d buy that before I bought a jig to be honest. Though a quality jig can be good enough.
I was discussing this with some friends, we were tossing around the idea of counter top cut-off’s of granite or similar that you can often find on CL/Marketplace. Thoughts on ways to check for flatness without specialized tools?
Less specifically, I suggest designing around a 1x gravel drivetrain. It gives you more wiggle room to design the tire clearance while maintaining <430CS.
1x drivetrains have more range and are way more robust than 2x gravel these days. It will make your chainstay sub assembly simpler!
For a DIY setup, the weight of your kit is a consideration. The flatter and more precise all your surfaces are, the straighter your frame will be. Realistically, you are trying to hit +/-2mm and +/-.5 degree. Plus, as Paul Brodie shows, even with a flat surface, it is debatable what is “straight”:
My thinking on alignment has evolved over the past two years. To me, one of the conclusions of the alignment thread is that in modern frame building, (front triangle) alignment does not really matter. A few things to consider:
Framebuilding is a hobby, and if chasing perfection is part of the fun, go for it. I think as long as your miters are tight and you critically think about your weld/brazing sequence, your frame will come out fine.
I always fall into the trap of wanting everything to be perfect before I start a project. I have to remind myself that things will never be perfect. First one will suck, the second will be better, third will be great.
From an alignment/quality of fabrication perspective this is true. But from a personal enjoyment and fulfillment perspective there’s not much better than the feeling of pride and accomplishment you get every time you throw a leg over a bike you made - especially the first one. I still commute on the first frame I made, and while the frames I’ve made since then have a better fit and finish, the feeling is still the same.
I know you know this, I just thought it was worth repeating given the context of the thread.
Agree that getting the first frame ‘perfect’ is not the goal here but learning what’s needed to build consistently ‘straight’ frames, whatever your acceptable tolerance is.
I piece of granite counter top is a pretty decent place to start and get a feel for the tools and methods you’ll use. As you progress through your learning you’ll want a better surface.
To the OP, figure out a way of aligning your frames that doesn’t involve clamping the BB shell. Search around this forum, Velocipedesalaon and other builders photo albums, socials etc. and you’ll see a few different ways.
There are 3 things that you need to have to do this as a hobby. Time, money, and space.
Because my home does not have a garage or any extra yard space to build a work shed, space was my biggest hurdle to overcome. Luckily I do have a makerspace close by that I am a member of, but I did not have any space to store my materials (you gather a lot of materials doing this hobby). A rental unit in the makerspace opened up and now I have the space problem solved, albeit at $350 / month. But I do have access to all the tools including a milling machine and lathe. However, you should still plan to buy some tools and consumables even if the makerspace has them. Other members break and misplace things all the time, so I have bought a lot of my own tools and consumables (drill bits for instance).
I have been working at this for 2+ years and still have not built a frame, so you can do that math that things get pretty expensive. I have bought thousands of dollars worth of tools on top of all this as well. Reaming and facing cutters, heat sinks, a TIG welder, etc. etc. I have a good job that helps me pay for all this. However, in order to pay for all of this I have to keep my job which cuts into my time. So that’s why it’s been 2+ years. The time to do the hobby also cuts into other aspects of your life as well. Plan to not ride your bike as much and hopefully any significant others will be OK with you spending many hours in the shop.
That being said, I think this is one of the coolest hobbies out there and you will learn A LOT! I have set a goal to get a least 1 ride-able frame done that I can use as my road bike. Once I get to that point, I am hopeful that I will have the process dialed in and that any bike frames I build after that won’t be quite so financial and time consuming.
Your experience is my fear haha. Luckily I do have a garage with space to dedicate to this hobby (kind of, but I’m reorganizing my “workshop” half of the garage this Winter with this project in mind. Hope to have a moveable setup so I don’t lose the space completely for years).
I’m also planning on taking either an Oxy Brazing or TIG class (it seems TIG may be the way I go after reading the feedback here) at a local metal working studio which also has some milling machines and membership access to the equipment). I was going to start very small/minimal and do a lot of work by hand which I realize will be more laborious but hopefully reduce the initial tool investment (as stated before I realize how quickly this baloons despite best intentions). This is basically the reason I started the thread, to get a feel for what could be the most minimal, reasonable assortment of tools to execute this.
Thanks for the feedback, hope you keep making progress this year!
If you want to keep it simple and cheap for your first frame, which I think is a really good idea, I suggest oxy-acetylene and a lugged frame.
You can probably find a used torch set cheaper than a decent TIG welder. I think you’ll find silver brazing lugs to be easier to pick up than TIG welding.
Where are you located?
This.
The costs of the tools needed just to get a frame ready to accept parts is high. Yes, you could take it to a LBS to get the job(s) done, but if you want to do it all ‘in house’ these things really add up.
Definitely worth standardising on headset/seatpost/BB sizes to at least reduce the variables!
I’m in Denver. I’m torn on what to try and learn, mainly because I can see TIG having greater utility in some other interests (I’d love to design a teardrop style camper in the future and having TIG skills for framing would be useful, although I know MIG is generally sufficient for those applications)
Sounds like you are in pretty good shape because you have garage / storage space at your home and a metal shop that you can be a member at. It will get annoying bringing the materials back and forth between your house and the metal shop, but that’s what it will end up being if there isn’t storage space at the metal shop.
If the metal shop has a TIG welder you can use that will be great too, but you might want to invest in your own argon tank (about $300 + $40 to get filled each time, yes more $$$). It’s not absolutely necessary, but the argon gas at my makerspace is provided by a guy that lives 45 minutes away and it’s not his priority to make sure that the makerspace has argon. So to bypass that I bought my own.
Hopefully I’m not scaring you away from pursuing this, but I also don’t want to sugarcoat the obstacles to overcome. The obstacles can be overcome, but they take time, money, space, or all 3.
I disagree with Daniel on this one if you value your time. How much do you value an hour of your time? Let’s say it’s $60/hour. If you do this yourself, your first frame will likely take at least 50 hours over at least several months. That’s $3,000 plus the cost of all the equipment and supplies you’ll need. After at least six months you’ll have one frame done. And you won’t really know if that frame is made well.
Whereas if you take a class, you spend coin up front but you’ll learn the skills so much faster. You’ll have an experienced framebuilder guiding you along and all but guaranteeing that the frame you produce is safe to ride.
Story time:
I’ve been wanting to switch to TIG welding my frames for a while now. I took a generic TIG class and picked up the basics but my teacher couldn’t show me how to weld really thin-walled stuff because he’d never done it. So I was left on my own to fumble along until I got good enough to weld some yokes to my fillet brazed frames.
Recently, I visited John Caletti’s shop where myself and a couple of other builders got together to share our knowledge. In the four days I was there I actually learned how to weld a bicycle frame. It was freakin’ awesome.
Moral of the story: It pays to learn directly from experienced people who do the thing that you want to do. You learn more in less time, which ultimately saves money and heartache.
I hear you. I think your point illustrates some interesting points of divergence in the bike building process as a whole.
To Daniel’s point; I have a degree in Industrial Design, I’m a product manager/designer, a good understanding of geometry/bike design/aesthetic design, I have a solid mechanical background in that I can work on and build my own bikes completely (I know this is not the same, but mechanical aptitude and understanding the parts and interfaces), and at one point was proficient in CAD (Solidworks). Those things do give me a certain leg up in the basic understanding of the process and some of the intricacies of the information needed to accomplish this project.
To your point: My only real fabrication experience is wood, and tinkering with little projects for my house and garage. I do not have first hand experience welding/assembling metal, the finer points of jig set up, etc which is something that can really only be gleaned from 1,000’s of frames under your belt which is where learning from a professional in this highly niche skillset would be beneficial. I’m wondering if a less intensive shadowing/lessons in specific aspects of the build process would be most time and cost efficient (if I find someone willing). For instance I think I’m capable of design/tube selection/sourcing tubes and trims/ and generally prepping a lot of the build to the point where I’m ready to install braze-ons and start assembling tubes. At that point, an experienced hand would be most beneficial in the finer points of weld schedule, alignment, tips and tricks, finishing, etc.
Thanks again for the input! It’s super interesting to see the different takes on the process and I think someone made a good point of setting the correct goal/expectation to help guide what level of intensity/investment my process entails.
Lots of awesome advice across the board.
I use my LBS for all finishing. Reamers etc are very expensive, especially if they’ll only be used once or twice a year. Plus it’s great to have others share the stoke for what you’re doing. This forum is fantastic, but nothing beats a “that’s F@#$ing awesome, you built that” from someone in-person. And if you buy all the components you’ll need through them you might be able to unlock access to some of their tools. Or get first dibs on used parts that flow through their shop. Good relationships can go a long way.
One more thought: If you want frame #1 to be a forever frame, make it at a framebuilding class. It will turn out better. However, If you know frame #1 is just the first step before frame #2 and 3 and 4 then why not just go for it? So what if it’s a little crooked or you burned a hole or two in it. If you have the tools to build one, it’s only a little more money to build the next one.
And then still take a framebuillding class. As @manzanitacycles says, they’re awesome and you’ll learn a ton. If I could get away from the kids for a week or two I absolutely would take one.
All of this is to say, you need experience to get good. Some of it will be your own experience, some of it will be using the experience of others. Take whatever path seems right for you and have fun making stuff! Hobbies don’t need to be a race to get as good as possible as quickly as possible, they just need to be fun. Do whatever you think will be most enjoyable.
Wise words.
Daniel and you and a few others are right. I don’t mean to come off as the guy who insists there’s only one way to learn. The OP can definitely do it solo. Many others have. Enjoy the process!
This is the exact logic I went through before booking a class with Rob at Tempest Bicycles here in AU. I don’t own any shop tools, nor do I have a space setup that I can dedicate to framebuilding just yet. The course is for two weeks this coming April. Happy to start a thread summerising my expereince if that’s something folks are into.
Agree, there is whole bunch of different angles and good advice above. There is no one way to do this and you need to chooose what suits your situation and what experience you start from, which is a pretty solid foundation in your case. The one thing that will catch you out initially is the physical nature of working metal. Make sure your space is comfortable an uncluttered. To fast tarck your learning curve I’d jump into a build course and see the process and the tools used. from there, with your knowledge you’ll very quickly figure out how you will go about it. You don’t have to stick strictly to how you will be taught either, so when you get home you can explore your process and fine tune it each successive frame.
Don’t do it they way I did it, but then there were no courses available in Australia at the time so had to just jump in and hack away. Has been a hard grind and have had to boot strap it the whole time and am largely self taught from reading, watching and asking questions of the masters. Doing a course woudl ahve saved so much money, time and headaches.
How much are framebuilding classes? $2000? $3000? Unless you happen to live nearby, there are travel and lodging expenses to consider.
I’d MUCH rather spend that $$$ on tools and materials than on a class. Half the enjoyment of being a hobby builder is the trial & error and problem solving process.
Maybe if I had unlimited funds, was making an investment in my education to become a professional framebuilder as fast as possible, or if all I wanted to do was build one frame, I’d consider taking a framebuilding class. Otherwise I always saw it as a poor use of my limited funds.
If I had spent $3000 on a class, all I’d have to show for it would be one frame and a quicker learning curve for the knowledge to build more. Of course I wouldn’t be able to build any more frames because I wouldn’t have any tools.
If I had spent $3000 on basic tools, I’d have a nicer setup than I have now and the means to build as many frames as I want. Sure the learning didn’t happen as fast as taking a class, but this is a hobby and I’m not in a hurry.
I get the impression that the OP is in a similar situation.
You’re correct in assuming my mentality is more the latter, I’d rather slowly/wisely invest in tools and skills than on a class. I’m a combination of stubborn and like to do things for myself (not always the quickest or cheapest, I have a lot of experience in that haha). That’s not to say I won’t seek advice and guidance (I do have some frame builder friends…) from professionals, but part of the reason I want to learn a lot of the skills is for general fabrication knowledge in addition to bikes. I’ve got all kinds of teardrop camper fantasies as well and welding/fabrication skills seem generally good to have.