Nice! I’m used to work at American Cyclery. Sorry for the late response. Haven’t been on here in a hot minute.
Hello Everybody! My name is Matt. I’m an aspiring framebuilder in San Francisco.
Back in March I attended Yamaguchi in Rifle, CO and built my first frame (+ fork and stem) - a fillet brazed cross-ish bike. Since then I’ve been kind of obsessively trying to figure out how to do more of this and make it a regular practice. It’s been a challenge, especially living in a small studio in the city, but I’ve finally found a place to work out of and have started amassing tools and building out my space.
I’m mostly interested in building lugged 1" standard road bikes for the time being. Starting with the basics, I suppose! Looking forward to absorbing knowledge and inspiration from the folks on here.
For the time being, would welcome any leads/advice for cheap practice tubing & lugs. I have a nice 531 tubeset ready to go for my first solo project, but would love to get some reps in before diving into that.
Excited to be part of the community!
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Nice looking bike! An easy source of practice tubes is just to cut up old bike frames which are often basically free (but it still feels somehow wrong to be doing that). Don’t know about lugs (I TIG everything myself 
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If you can find any frame builders nearby, If they have been around for a while, they likely have a box of random lugs and parts they’d likely sell for cheap. I don’t know if Ceeway still has practice lugs, but they used to.
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Hello Everyone !
My name’s Vincent and I’m from France ! I’m a product/industrial designer with a highly technical penchant. I’m veeeery crafty and nerdy about all my passions, every piece of equipment or gear that I buy often requires its own Excel benchmark curated over several weeks, if I’m not downright throwing myself into crafting the thing…
37 yo, I’ve been riding since I’m a kid, started with dirt in the woods and still have my good old Commencal Absolut AL1 2008 rolling when I go back to my parent’s.
I’ve been working in product design and mechanical conception for about 14 years now, and in 2020 I met someone at my company with whom I ended up crafting a bike. I’ll present it in another topic to keep this short
Anyway, since then I’ve been thinking, drawing, modeling a lot, and I feel like I’m close to renew the experience (solo probably), and give a try to full carbon !
I hope to find some information around here, and ask questions about things I don’t have knowledge about yet.
See you around !
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Hello fellow enthusiasts!
I’m Tommi Riite and the co-founder of Kovabikes. I’m from Finland and currently only 25 years old. I work as a project engineer at a big company locally but that is perhaps the least interesting thing about my life in my opinion. I got into mountain biking and never looked back after that. E-bikes have been the thing for me and i still really enjoy them.
I have been riding our prototype more or less for 2 years now at bike parks and local trails here and just now realized how great of a product it is. My partner in crime has been the more active participant in social media but i decided to give it a try now.
There is perhaps too much to fit into this small introduction thread, but i am excited to be part of this community.
And for last, I have been mapping out the idea of starting my own company here in Finland with the Kovabikes brand. I’ll be starting a new thread of discussion for that too, let me know if you are interested in collaborating and sharing your thoughts
See you on the trails (and a photo of my whip from last winter)!
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Hi Chris
Thanks fo sharing.
-Thom
hi everyone, Daniel here. My background is in Mechanical and Aerospace engineering and I have a huge passion for anything with wheels and engines/motors. I like thinking outside of the box and experimenting with new developments such as 3D printing and recumbent bikes & trikes. Feel free to reach out if you share the same interests. Cheers
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Hello to all. Paul here from Sebastopol, CA. Been lurking for a while and finally found a thread that I could possibly add to, so thought that an introduction was in order first. I like building things, especially human powered transportation, and find the real challenge in the fixtures involved. This has mostly been bike frames and wooden kayaks. Originally from The Netherlands, bikes and boats are in my blood.
Being an old guy and hobby builder only, I had little interest in going commercial but I have built over 30 for myself, friends and family in the last 40 years. Always in steel, the first couple with lugs and only fillet brazed from then on. Early on my brother wrote for me a program that gave simple dimensions and miter information. This was done in 1985 on an Apple][ and worked quite well for years. I still have it on a 5 1/4”floppy, he later ported it to the Mac. Lately I have been building replicas of early frame designs (1895-1920-ish) just for fun.
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Welcome! I saw your contribution and now I wanna see a full build log of that magnificent bicycle. Looks like a fun project.
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Thanks. I hesitated to post what I did as I am not sure replica bikes are what this site is about. While I do have some random pics of this build (from 2011) it would be a pretty fragmented log. I did build a second one later on so maybe between them I can put something together. I’ll wander over to the correct thread and give it a shot.
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Hi there !
I’m Paul, a machinist living in France.
I have no actual framebuilding education/practice other than videos and forums but I’m working toward building a frame for myself. The first step is gonna be building a unicycle frame to get more confident with tig welding, I’ll make a build log if anyone is interested !
I’m really glad I found this forum with so many passionate people sharing their journey and knowledges.
I’ll see you around !
Paul
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Hi Paul,
an unicycle build log would be interesting to watch.
-Thom
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I started it ! It’s nice to see some unicycle enjoyers
Hey, I’m Matt! I’ve been quietly watching this forum for a while ever since I took a frame building course with @Schonstudio a while back. Since then I’ve built a few frames and screwed each up in a new and fun way. Today I rode a frame that, while far from perfect, doesn’t have any fundamental issues. I used to be a software engineer and really enjoy the CAD and design side of things, but I equally really love the hands on building part as well. I live in British Columbia, Canada. Just wanted to introduce myself and thank everyone for contributing to such a great useful place!
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Lookin great Matt!!!
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Hi everyone!
I’m Mathew Braun from Vancouver BC. In the past I was quite active as Skyland Cycles, and have organized and hosted two frame building events locally in Vancouver some years ago. I have become less public facing with Skyland Cycles and had hung up the torch for a few years, but I am back to building in a small capacity since January of last year. I’ve been lurking the forum for a while so its probably time to formally introduce myself. Here’s one of my personal bikes that I still ride!
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Nice frame. Love the paint!
Guess I should introduce myself too…
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Name: Ryan Trimble
Location: Utah
My name is Ryan and in 2014 I read “Zen and the Art of of Motorcycle Maintenance,” which set to me to fixing all the bikes I was riding. “Shop Class as Soulcraft” also inspired me.
A year later I took a part time job at a bike shop—as a 38-year-old with three kids, so that didn’t last long given my financial responsibilities 
Short time later I found an old Trek in a dumpster, started modding it in the garage and local bike collective. Still the bike I ride today. Friends started asking me to build them bikes, customize old 90s stuff.
When Covid arrived, I found Walt Wehner online and did a fabrication class with him in Park City. In 2023 I found a listing on eBay for a complete fabrication shop—Anvil jigs, milling machine, reamers, facers, etc. So I drove to Santa Cruz and bought them with a 401k loan. Included old frame jig (Henry James), but it works.
I’ve only built one frame and two forks since, but now working on my third frameset. My kids are off to college and I now have the time. We’ll see if money holds up 
This forum reminds me of the forums from 20 years ago, pre-social media. I was into RC cars then, and building all kinds of custom parts and cars, and there was a great community online, much like this one.
I took a job at a machine shop for a while back then, but also always had one leg in office work to support my family.
At 35 I went back to college, and deliberated over a degree in mechanical engineering or philosophy, both personal interests. I settled on philosophy. Today I earn a paycheck as a writer and editor, but I hope to keep the engineering streak in me alive with bike fab.
I have no interest in doing custom work, but in perfecting a unique model or two, and building for my kids and friends. I’m into classic styling and touring/randonneuring/commuting builds. Comfortable and capable. Bare metals and chromatic tones. No branding, paint, or stickers. Bucket list item of mine to tour across the USA on a bike I fab.
This is a 90s GT I modded to a 650b commuter for a very tall friend.
This is the frame I built with Walt Wehner
This is my old Trek, modded for 650b. Chopped fenders.
I’m currently drafting frameset #3, which is a vision I’ve had in mind for years. We’ll see whether my nascent skills can bring it to reality. 
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Nice to see you on here. Good memories working in that shop together. Those bikes look very nice. Seems you forgot to mention you are also an excellent photographer.
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