Bicycle frame building for the rest of us.

Beginning steps - deciding what you want to build.

Materials - what to use and where to get it.

Tools - a bare bones set of tools.

Modifying the fork-ends with stainless faces.

Modifying the bottom bracket shell to work with my mix of angles.

Mitering the tubes.

Soldering the main triangle.

Soldering the rear triangle.

Cleaning up the lugs. Complete with lots of pictures of the naked unpainted frame.

Making transfers.

Painting.

Addendum.

Bicycle frame building has a reputation as being an arcane art; something that's practiced by wizened old Jedi masters, or else carried out by huge, complicated robots in Taiwan, attended by a small army of engineers, technicians, and metallurgists. This isn't so. Frame building is a craft like any other, with simple, consistent rules that mere mortals can master fairly easily, given sufficient attention to detail and care.

I've been a cycling nut since age four. I've assembled a few bikes from individual components, laced a couple of dozen wheels, and figured that building my own frame was the next logical challenge. I've built a few now, and thought I'd share my experiences, as there wasn't a raft of information available when I started my research.

Fair warning: I write here about my experiences building my first few frames. Not everything I say here is necessarily correct; indeed the only thing I'm sure of is that I have made and will continue to make mistakes. If you don't like my practical approach, treating the framebuilding exercise as a simple mechanical exercise, then I suggest you type "Steel is real" into a Google search.

It is not my aim to devalue the masters of the framebuilding profession, such as Richard Sachs, and more locally Darrell McCulloch, both of whom create truly gorgeous bicycles, lovingly hand-crafted to fit the rider perfectly, and who's workmanship is truly second-to-none.